Hi Ronald,
On 02 Jun 2009, at 16:45, ronaldheld wrote:
>
> Bruno:
> Since I program in Fortran, I am uncertain how to interpret things.
I was alluding to old, and less old, disputes again programmers, about
which programming language to prefer.
It is a version of Church Thesis that all algorithm can be written in
FORTRAN. But this does not mean that it is relevant to define an
algorithm by a fortran program. I thought this was obvious, and I was
using that "known" confusion to point on a similar confusion in Set
Theory, like Langan can be said to perform.
In Set Theorist, we still find often the error consisting in defining
a mathematical object by a set. I have done that error in my youth.
What you can do, indeed, is to *represent* (almost all) mathematical
objects by sets. Langan seems to make that mistake.
The point is just that we have to distinguish a mathematical object
and the representation of that object in some mathematical theory.
I will have the opportunity to give a precise example in the 7th
thread later.
In usual mathematical practice, this mistake is really not important,
yet, in logic it is more important to take into account that
distinction, and then in cognitive science it is *very* important.
Crucial, I would say. The error consisting in identifying
consciousness and brain state belongs to that family, for example. To
confuse a person and its body belongs to that family of error too.
All such error are of the form of the confusion between the Moon and
the finger which point to the moon, or the confusion between a map and
the territory.
I have nothing against the use of FORTRAN. On the contrary I have a
big respect for that old venerable high level programming language :)
Bruno
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
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Received on Thu Jun 04 2009 - 16:49:43 PDT