Will_Newsome comments on A Rationalist's Tale - Less Wrong

82 Post author: lukeprog 28 September 2011 01:17AM

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Comment author: Will_Newsome 10 September 2011 11:30:52AM *  0 points [-]

Metaphysics of abstract processes: Pythagoras -> Leibniz -> Turing. Platonism -> monadology -> algorithmic information theory.

Math and logics: Archimedes et al -> Leibniz -> Turing. Logic -> symbolic logic -> theory of computation.

Philosophy of cognition: (haven't researched yet) -> Leibniz -> Turing. ? -> alphabet of thought -> Church-Turing thesis.

Computer engineering: Archimedes -> Pascal-Leibniz -> Turing. Antikythera mechanism -> symbolic calculator -> computer.

Comment author: Jack 10 September 2011 11:54:35AM *  1 point [-]

I think you're vastly over emphasizing the historic importance of Leibniz.

Comment author: Will_Newsome 10 September 2011 12:12:53PM 0 points [-]

True, but I think only in the same sense that everyone vastly overemphasizes the importance of Babbage. They both made cool theoretical advances that didn't have much of an effect on later thinking. This gives a sort of distorted view of cause and effect but the counterfactual worlds are actually worth figuring in to your tale in this case. Wow that would take too long to write out clearly, but maybe it kinda makes sense. (Chaitin actually discovered Leibniz after he developed his brand of algorithmic information theory; but he was like 'ah, this guy knew where it was at' when he found out about him.)

Comment author: RichardKennaway 10 September 2011 08:17:47PM 1 point [-]

OTOH, Wiener already in 1948 explicitly saw the digital computer as the fulfilment of Leibniz's calculus ratiocinator. (Quoted on Wiki here, full text (maybe paywalled) here.)

Comment author: Jack 10 September 2011 12:14:31PM 1 point [-]

Chaitin actually discovered Leibniz after he developed his brand of algorithmic information theory; but he was like 'ah, this guy knew where it was at' when he found out about him.

Interesting! You have a cite?

Comment author: Will_Newsome 10 September 2011 12:24:53PM *  3 points [-]

This is the original essay I read, I think: http://evans-experientialism.freewebspace.com/chaitin.htm

I should point out that Leibniz had the two key ideas that you need to get this modern definition of randomness, he just never made the connection. For Leibniz produced one of the first calculating machines, which he displayed at the Royal Society in London, and he was also one of the first people to appreciate base-two binary arithmetic and the fact that everything can be represented using only 0s and 1s. So, as Martin Davis argues in his book The Universal Computer: The Road from Leibniz to Turing, Leibniz was the first computer scientist, and he was also the first information theorist. I am sure that Leibniz would have instantly understood and appreciated the modern definition of randomness.

Comment author: Will_Newsome 10 September 2011 12:18:47PM *  0 points [-]

It'll take a few minutes, Googling Leibniz+Chaitin gives a lot of plausible hits.

Comment author: Will_Newsome 10 September 2011 11:42:47AM *  0 points [-]

(The history of how the idea of computation got formulated is really pertinent for FAI researchers. Justification is a lot like computation. I think we're nearing the "Leibniz stage" of technical moral philosophy. Luckily we already have the language of computation (and decision theory) to build off of in order to talk about justification. Hopefully that will reduce R&D time from centuries to decades. I'm kind of hopeful.)

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