[FRIAM] The epiphenomenality relation

[Marcus Daniels]

My (positive) understanding of the word "hacker" is a person that approaches an artificial system as a natural system and works to find their own model of it by which they can productively modify the software or influence the behavior of the software.    It is useful to have many hackers working on overlapping parts of a system because inconsistencies in these models reflect not just what the code is at a given time, but what the different hackers think it could be.   Some of these inconsistencies need to be made consistent by consensus redesign.   Other places hooks are needed to let the different aspirations move forward without interfering with core consensus principles.   Generally, any large software system is bigger than any one author can comprehensively understand, and its intent diverges from the original version.    Healthy software projects, IMO, find a way to let newcomers bash around and become finely skilled over time.   Without newcomers the collective aspirations become stale.    A source code that is nice to work with is one that is resilient to bashing, and guides you in doing the right thing.  

-----Original Message-----
From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> On Behalf Of Steve Smith
Sent: Monday, November 29, 2021 10:13 AM
To: friam at redfish.com
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] The epiphenomenality relation

Glen -

I appreciate your vernacular distinction between "hack" and "crack". I'm of an age/generation that "hack" still carries over/undertones of things like "wood butcher" (someone whose carpentry skills/style is anything but subtle), but am habituated to recognizing it as a generally positive (or at least playful) mode.

In the early days of the internet (public version ca 1992), I had a student intern from NYU's Tisch School of Design who came to the world of computers/internet from very much an art-design perspective where they had their own conceptions of adaptive use of design elements and tools.  He used the term "bash around" in a similar mode to the modern "hack around" with the sense of seeking those potential exploits with an implicit willingness to risk breaking something in the process.  In his case, he seemed to have a healthy appreciation for the robustness of computer-systems in contrast to others not-very-computer-savvy who might be afraid to touch the keyboard for fear they would break something.

This activity-style takes me back to the "wood butcher" vs the "fine skilled carpenter"... I have known nominal "wood butchers" whose final work was highly refined by a certain aesthetic *and* involved a visceral understanding of the qualities of the materials in use, *derived* by *hacking around* vs the often more book-larned style of some carvers/carpenters whose understanding of the materials and tools might be a bit less self-discovered.

I think your use of the term "exploit"" here adds to the teleological divide in these conversations... or more to the point exposes it (yet) more.  I'm comfortable in everyday discourse with this divide.... humans exhibit/experience all sorts of illusions of "free-will" even if our metaphysics might insist that such things ARE illusions.   I even find it useful (at least convenient) to speak of the intentions of the inanimate world (e.g. the rock rolling down the cliff crushing the cabin with/without anyone in it or nearby to care) sometimes, but as with your regular warnings about excess meaning with metaphorical thinking, I recognize that it is risky business to *speak* of intentions where there is no evidence there actually is any.

Which I *think* offers us the opportunity of the same treatment of this subject *through* a pan psychism lens?  Though we may not want to open up that complementary can-o-worms.

- Steve

> I argue, No. The point of hacking has nothing to do with bugs. It has to do with exploits. You can exploit either a purposefully designed in feature *or* an accidentally built in bug.
>
> We can put sensitivity analysis and stress testing on a spectrum *with* hacking. Penetration testing is on that spectrum, bridging between hacking and using the device as intended.
>
> As for the word, itself, I tend to use "hack" to mean anything *playful* and "crack" as the exploitation for personal gain. So while a white hat hacker tries to find exploits, a black hat "hacker" tries to crack the device for exploit/profit.
>
> But to each her own. It's not the word that's important. It's the concept and the behavior.
>
> On 11/29/21 9:19 AM, Steve Smith wrote:
>> Isn't the *point* of hacking to discover ways to use "bugs" of an 
>> intentionally designed system *as* "features", often in combination 
>> with other bugs/features?   Maybe *I* impute too much into the idea 
>> of "hacking"?  (does one impute *into* or *onto* BTW?)
>>
>> I admit, when I follow clickbait with "hack" in the title sometimes the target of the hack is a system *not* designed/built by humans with intentions which the "hack" is overcoming/circumventing/re-tasking... but I don't think of that as a "hack" as much as "thoughtful understanding".  The vernacular use of "hack" seems overly broad to me.
>>
>> I suppose the character of Sherlock Holmes is characterized by the overlap of these two abilities (encyclopedic knowledge of human-built and natural systems, along with an acute analytic ability to deduce and infer and and a similar acute ability to synthesize disparate elements of those systems to achieve a specific purpose)?   Though I suppose the latter is more in the domain of the Archetype "McGuyver", leaving Sherlock more to the domain of engineering *humans* to admit to or demonstrate their culpability in something or another.   McGuyver seems to be intent on breaking or remaking things to fulfill his own current desire.


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