Tomas Petricek, Alan Turing Institute
http://tomasp.net | tomas@tomasp.net | @tomaspetricek
The Order of Things
Michael Foucault (1966)
Buffon was [astonished by Aldrovandi's] mixture of exact descriptions, reported quotations, fables, remarks dealing indifferently with an animal’s anatomy, its use in heraldry, its habitat, its mythological values or the uses to which it could be put in medicine or magic.
Two theories do not share a basis that would
allow evaluating them using a common metric.
Programming is error-prone. It is even worse when programming a quantum computer (...) because human intuition is much better adapted to the classical world than to the quantum world.
How can we build automatic tools for verifying correctness of quantum programs? A logic for verification of both partial correctness and total correctness of quantum programs was developed (...).
One of the goals of the Algol research programme was to utilize the resources of logic to increase the confidence that it was possible to have in the correctness of a program.
Science of Operations
Mark Priestley (2012)
Episteme, paradigm or research programme
The rise of theoretical computer science was anything but inevitable. (...) Advocates of theoretical computer science pursued a strategy that served them well within the university, but increasingly alienated them from their colleagues in the industry.
The Computer Boys Take Over
Nathan Ensmenger (2012)
Museums and encyclopedias
Collections of species as they are
Organized according to taxonomy
Common Law is founded on precedent. (...) Courts [today] will follow the example of other courts which have decided similar cases in the past.
This procedure recognizes the principle (...) that practical wisdom is more truly embodied in action than expressed in rules of action.
Personal Knowledge
Michael Polanyi (1958)
Resemblances between signs
Across all areas of knowledge
Resemblances between signs
Animal's anatomy, its habitat and the
uses to which it could be put in magic.
Resemblances between signs
Programming tool's theory and the
uses to which it could be put in practice.
Stories, metaphors and analogies bridge the
boundaries across different forms of knowledge
If a subject does not permit exactness,
it is not sufficient to be exact about something else.Personal Knowledge, Michael Polanyi (1958)
During the 18th century the French Academy of Sciences
stubbornly denied the evidence for the fall of meteorites.
We no longer consider falling of meteorites to be incompatible with the scientific world view. But other doubts, which we now sustain as reasonable have only our beliefs to warrant them.
More philosophy of science
tomasp.net/blog/tag/philosophy
Current PPIG paper draft
tomasp.net/academic/drafts/unthinkable
What I'm also working on :-)
thegamma.net