Last updated 2002-03-03-11:10 -0800 (pst)
From: Anderson, William L
Sent:
Wednesday, October 04, 2000 08:34
Subject: RE: MISER: System, Theory, Model,
Interpretation
Dennis, I've finally been able to carve out some time
to look at the Miser site and to think about this nomenclature
thing.
Not having many books with me (all in storage, including Putnam) I
looked in the dictionary to check on "model" and "interpretation." Webster's
New World Dictionary yields the
following:
model: a
representation to be copied; a pattern is a model that is to be strictly
followed.
So, what kind of models are we talking about here? What kind of
flexibility
in copying are
permissible?
interpretation:
explanation, meaning, translation, exposition.
This is really rich, but
without going crazy with word games, I think some working definitions are
needed.
This is also my comment regarding the Miser themes. I know you're
aiming at understanding; understanding of computation, computers, and
the human/computer DMZ (joke!). So I'd like to suggest some changes to the
7 Miser project themes as they relate to Miser Obs.
1.
Universality:
what does
"elementary structure" mean? as contrasted with what? this could
read
having from the very beginning a structure ...
2.
Completeness:
seems OK, but for
those unsure of what "computational completeness" is, this is a bit of a
mystery
3. Interpretation:
I find this whole sentence confusing; too many repetitions of "entities" and
"interpretation." I don't have a solution yet.
4.
Representation:
OK, but kind of
circular. I'm trying to find a description of representation that will make
this more meaningful.
5.
Extensibility:
my version is
"demonstrating a computational system's capacity for augmenting and adding to its internal representations while preserving testability of the system to theoretical analysis"
but still a
mouthful.
6. Fidelity:
circular statement, is this
better?
"confirming an
implementation's correspondence to a theoretical
7.
Realization:
replace "mechanizing"
which is not a word with making
operational the mechanism's
...
but I still think the word
"mechanism" is confusing here.
Anyway, I need to think about this some
more. Hope these comments
are
helpful.
Bill
created 2001-11-29-21:53 -0800 (pst) by orcmid
$$Author: Orcmid $
$$Date: 02-03-03 11:54 $
$$Revision: 3 $
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