Alexander Johannesen has written a very interesting piece on his struggle to define the world through a computer’s programming language. He is frustrated by the need for the world to stand still whilst programmed and then stay that way so that the program works. Life isn’t like that and the best programming languages we have available are not sophisticated enough for what Alex requires.
The model which isThe Ontology of the Human Observer may offer some additional insight. This model of human behaviour interprets that we are all observers in the world. All that we respond to, see, think etc., is a function of what we are capable of observing. If you change or expand what you can observe a greater choice of action becomes available to you.
Perhaps part of the solution for Alex lies in understanding that computer systems do not observe. We ‘tell’ them what is observable (a class) but that is limited by what we are able to observe ourselves and the language we have with which to express it. And by the time we’ve finished coding we have changed the observers we are. It’s not so much that the world changes but that we become capable of seeing a new world. Ironically it is often the exercise of trying to force what we know into a computer model that we begin to understand (overwhelm) ourselves with the myriad of fine distinctions available. The problem then compounds again because what we observer is inherently network in nature.
So for computer languages to approach the ability to model reality they must first become able to observe. My best wishes to those who wish to take that task on. I’ll continue to work on myself as an observer first.