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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
 Posted - 10/28/2009 : 22:20:51 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Machi4velli
I consider some deductive things to be technology...
...All of this could not be deduced from the computer hardware at all, but it was nevertheless deduced mathematically from the formulation of the problem. I'm not sure how this is not technology from my own reasoning. |
Well, the question seems to be, "is a purely logically deductive process 'technology' at all?" You consider some to be, but does that mean that they are? |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 10/28/2009 : 23:02:28 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dave W.
Originally posted by Dude
By your own reasoning: there is nothing a computer can't do that you can't deduce from the design of the hardware, therefore programs are not technology. |
That seems to be the question, doesn't it?
Actually, most computer programs can be functionally specified without regard to any particular hardware. Java is available for over 10 different platforms, but they all follow the same specification. Writing a computer program involves taking an abstract functional spec and finding the sequence of instructions on the particular processor you want to program that will satisfy the functional spec (if any). In other words, the "technological" part of a computer program - the part that distinguishes a spreadsheet from a word processor from a Web browser - exists apart from any hardware.
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If a computer program will run on multiple pieces of hardware it is only because of common physical elements between those pieces of hardware.
To simplify this down as much as possible: Think of a knife. The main purpose of a knife is cutting/stabbing. There are many other obvious uses that come to mind when you examine a knife. Saying a computer program is technology is like saying that using a knife as a paperweight is technology. Clearly the knife is technology, but using it as a weight is not.
With regard to specific mathematical processes being considered technology? In a legal sense I think this is true. If you develop some algorithm to solve a specific problem, then the use of your algorithm is (legally) treated the same as a microchip design would be. But is it actually technology? I don't think so.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 10/29/2009 : 08:11:09 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dude
If a computer program will run on multiple pieces of hardware it is only because of common physical elements between those pieces of hardware. |
Well, no. I'm talking about different sets of binary code running on different processors, but accomplishing the same goals. A single specification for a chess game (for example) will be implemented with different binary code on an Intel desktop computer than on an iPhone, but from a user's perspective will behave in exactly the same way (aside from possible user-interface differences). In this sense, a "program" isn't a specific set of microprocessor instructions that executes on a particular computer platform, but in instead the abstract chess algorithm which exists independently of any hardware or operating system.| To simplify this down as much as possible: Think of a knife. The main purpose of a knife is cutting/stabbing. There are many other obvious uses that come to mind when you examine a knife. Saying a computer program is technology is like saying that using a knife as a paperweight is technology. Clearly the knife is technology, but using it as a weight is not. |
But is the idea of a knife "technology?"| With regard to specific mathematical processes being considered technology? In a legal sense I think this is true. If you develop some algorithm to solve a specific problem, then the use of your algorithm is (legally) treated the same as a microchip design would be. But is it actually technology? I don't think so. |
We may be getting hung up on definitions, again. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 10/29/2009 : 09:02:16 [Permalink]
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Dave_W said:
| But is the idea of a knife "technology?" |
If it is, then the two words mean the same thing. All ideas would have to be technology, essentailly removing the distinction between the two.
The idea of a knife is knowledge. It isn't technology until you turn the idea into something tangible.
I don't think we are getting hung up on definitions. I think we (in the larger sense, not just the participants in this thread) have clouded the issue with things like use patents, intellectual property, and other things that treat ideas the same as tangible things.
And after thinking about it some more, maybe there is a grey area there between knowledge and technology. I still think a computer program probably falls short of actually being technology though. But your computer is just a large paperweight without some code....
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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Machi4velli
SFN Regular
USA
854 Posts |
Posted - 11/04/2009 : 09:45:00 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dave W.
Originally posted by Machi4velli
I consider some deductive things to be technology...
...All of this could not be deduced from the computer hardware at all, but it was nevertheless deduced mathematically from the formulation of the problem. I'm not sure how this is not technology from my own reasoning. |
Well, the question seems to be, "is a purely logically deductive process 'technology' at all?" You consider some to be, but does that mean that they are?
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By formulating the definition of technology in terms of problems we are able to solve or things we can improve, I think it does make some knowledge acquired through deduction capable of being technology. Is this the right formulation? I'm not sure.
I was responding to someone saying deductive things are not technology by my reasoning, which I don't see. |
"Truth does not change because it is, or is not, believed by a majority of the people."
-Giordano Bruno
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, but the illusion of knowledge."
-Stephen Hawking
"Seeking what is true is not seeking what is desirable"
-Albert Camus |
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Kurtz ousted from CFI
