[FRIAM] What is an object?

[Marcus Daniels]

Nick,

If I were programming in Cello<http://cidarlab.org/cello/>, then actual constraints of biology would influence me.   If I were programming an agent simulation for a system biology modeling project, what I understood about biology would go into that.
But not all kinds of programming would be influenced by biology.   Programming language features for typing or genericity are precise mathematical instruments that are best to understand on their own, without any vague or grandiose metaphors.
Also, I would discriminate between programming and computation.   There are many kinds of computation that would be interesting to consider separate from programming.   (Although `programming’ to me already has a broader meaning than it does for some.)

Marcus

From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> on behalf of Nick Thompson <nickthompson at earthlink.net>
Reply-To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com>
Date: Thursday, July 19, 2018 at 8:32 AM
To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group' <friam at redfish.com>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] What is an object?

Well, it goes without saying, doesn’t it, that it’s your current IDEAS of biology that influence your programming, not biology itself, right?  And your biologiized ideas of programming then influence your notion of the cell.  We never really know clouds themselves.  So to speak.



N

Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology
Clark University
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

From: Friam [mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com] On Behalf Of Marcus Daniels
Sent: Thursday, July 19, 2018 10:01 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] What is an object?


"Like with the Great Man Theory, the actual causes of any phenomena in a complex and complicated system like Xerox Parc (embedded in culture, society, psychology, physiology, biology, chemistry, etc.) are multifarious and occult."



Assuming there even was a Great Idea to go with a Great Man.  For starters..



https://medium.com/@cscalfani/goodbye-object-oriented-programming-a59cda4c0e53

http://www.stlport.org/resources/StepanovUSA.html

http://wiki.c2.com/?ArgumentsAgainstOop
https://content.pivotal.io/blog/all-evidence-points-to-oop-being-bullshit


<http://wiki.c2.com/?ArgumentsAgainstOop>

________________________________
From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com<mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com>> on behalf of glen <gepropella at gmail.com<mailto:gepropella at gmail.com>>
Sent: Thursday, July 19, 2018 7:22:17 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] What is an object?

Of course it's reasonable for you to dissent! But over and above the most important example Marcus raises of biology (because *everything* is biology 8^), even your historical account is a litany of WHAT, not WHY.

Sure it may seem like you're examining the why of these artifacts. But you're not. Why questions are always metaphysical. What you're actually doing in your list and analysis of past events is inferring the WHY from the WHAT. And your inferences, no matter how good you are at inferring, will always just be your best guess at WHY.

Like with the Great Man Theory, the actual causes of any phenomena in a complex and complicated system like Xerox Parc (embedded in culture, society, psychology, physiology, biology, chemistry, etc.) are multifarious and occult. No oversimplified *narrative* like yours will fully circumscribe those causes. To think otherwise is to fool oneself into false belief ... a kind of faith-based world view.


On July 19, 2018 3:01:57 AM PDT, Marcus Daniels <marcus at snoutfarm.com<mailto:marcus at snoutfarm.com>> wrote:
>"The IDEA of Smalltalk derived from the IDEA of Simula; the philosophy
>and ideas of Englebart, Bush, Sutherland; the metaphor of cellular
>biology, and undoubtedly more. Alan Kay coalesced those influences and
>led the team that implemented the team that actually created the
>language at Xerox PARC."
>
>For example, I don't see analogs of cytokines, hormones, or
>neurotransmitters in Smalltalk or any computing systems today.    The
>closest that comes to mind are functional reactive programming systems,
>e.g. game platforms tied to a physics engine.
>The idea that top-down intent matters is preposterous if the motivation
>is biology, a massively-parallel bottom-up phenomena that involves
>physical stuff.


--
glen

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