[SIGCIS-Members] The latest inventor of the computer
James Sumner
james.sumner at manchester.ac.uk
Fri Mar 24 02:41:18 PDT 2017
These days, on encountering any news story or feature that seems to be
touting a particularly bizarre claim, I try to make sure I look at the
text without reference to the headline, which is often constructed by a
subeditor without input or right of veto from the author. (Same applies
to standfirsts, where these are used: I have seen some particularly mad
examples of this form, even when both the headline and article are
restrained.) As Tom points out, Chris Dixon's /Atlantic/ piece has its
problems, but is considerably saner than its headline.
"How Aristotle Created the Computer" has an unfortunate ring of
self-parody for anyone familiar with technological precursoritis. I was
reminded of a line from the /TVGoHome/ book: "Recent archaeological digs
have unearthed evidence of a primitive Inca television set. Unlike
modern units it had no screen, and resembled a decorative cup. Instead
of broadcasting programmes, historians believe it was mainly used for
drinking liquid."
JS
On 23 Mar 17 21:39, Seamus Sweeney wrote:
> As often happens, dear old Ireland can claim an even earlier
> invention: - https://csiweb.ucd.ie/content/symbol-vec-newgrange
>
> Over 5000 years ago tomb builders in the Boyne Valley constructed,
> possibly, the first optical computer in the world using the main tomb
> at Newgrange. Every winter solstice the light at dawn on the horizon
> shines through a unique box-like structure over the main entrance,
> down the passage to the very back of the tomb; indicating very
> precisely the time of the the year. While the outer stones of the
> Newgrange tumulus are artistically decorated with spirals and
> losenges, the meaning of which is unknown, the reverse side of these
> kerb stones have less well-executed symbols (dot patterns, diamonds,
> spirals, losenges and so on) which are assumed to have some symbolic
> meaning. The aim of this project is to use the word2vec system to
> analyse the co-occurrence structure of these symbols with a view to
> saying something about the similarities between different stones
> and/or sites. Several current analyses have been carried out, based on
> percentages of coverage of certain symbols on given stones, but an
> extensive and complete analysis has yet to be carried out. Using an
> analogy to documents, each tomb can be treated as a document, each
> stone as a sentence and each symbol as a work. The aim of the system
> would be to detemine statistically what symbols tend to co-occur with
> other symbols at different locations.
>
> On 23 March 2017 at 21:34, Thomas Haigh <thomas.haigh at gmail.com
> <mailto:thomas.haigh at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
> That’s precisely why my CACM article had the tag line “Separating
> the origins of computer science and technology.” Computer science
> comes along later, and assembles its foundations long after actual
> electronic computers already exist. The mistake that computer
> scientists and philosophers make is in assuming that the
> development of actual computers must have been driven by the
> availability of abstract models. That reflects their general
> disdain for engineering and actual history. In reality, people
> built computers first and worried about how to legitimate a
> discipline around their study later.
>
> An article called “How Aristotle Created Computer Science” would
> be making an enormously different claim from one titled “How
> Aristotle Created the Computer.” However, any such article would
> need to be about the 1950s and 60s, that being when the various
> intellectual and institutional things that were integrated to form
> the foundations of computer science were actually assembled.
>
> Tom
>
> *From:*David C. Brock [mailto:dcb at dcbrock.net
> <mailto:dcb at dcbrock.net>]
> *Sent:* Thursday, March 23, 2017 4:21 PM
> *To:* Thomas Haigh <thomas.haigh at gmail.com
> <mailto:thomas.haigh at gmail.com>>
> *Cc:* David Brock <dcb at dcbrock.net <mailto:dcb at dcbrock.net>>; Len
> Shustek <len at shustek.com <mailto:len at shustek.com>>;
> members at lists.sigcis.org <mailto:members at lists.sigcis.org>
> *Subject:* Re: [SIGCIS-Members] The latest inventor of the computer
>
> But couldn’t one argue that computer science owes a huge debt to
> philosophy, particularly foundations of mathematics and formal
> logic? My impression is that debt is under-paid and not that
> widely appreciated.
>
> On Mar 23, 2017, at 4:48 PM, Thomas Haigh
> <thomas.haigh at gmail.com <mailto:thomas.haigh at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
> Better than the title, perhaps, but everything is relative.
>
> To be fair, the article is doubling down on a version of
> computer history that is quite popular, particularly among
> non-historians. Given the reach of Davis’ book, not to mention
> Hofstadter, I’m not sure that all this is as unusual approach
> as the opening implies. My views on all this are on record in
> the CACM article “Actually, Turing Did Not Invent The
> Computer.”http://www.tomandmaria.com/Tom/Writing/CACMActuallyTuringDidNotInventTheComputer.pdf
> <http://www.tomandmaria.com/Tom/Writing/CACMActuallyTuringDidNotInventTheComputer.pdf>
>
> If you believe Copeland, Davis, and others who think that
> Turing invented the so-called "stored program" computer in
> 1936, then why not cut out the middle man? Going up the chain
> and handing the whole thing to Aristotle is only slightly more
> of a stretch. Dixon clearly does believe the Davis/Copeland
> version:
>
> In contrast to Shannon’s paper, Turing’s paper is highly
> technical. Its primary historical significance lies not in its
> answer to the decision problem, but in the template for
> computer design it provided along the way….
>
> Turing showed how a program could be stored inside a computer
> alongside the data upon which it operates. In today’s
> vocabulary, we’d say that he invented the “stored-program”
> architecture that underlies most modern computers. [skipping
> quote from Davis] This was the first rigorous demonstration
> that any computing logic that could be encoded in hardware
> could also be encoded in software. The architecture Turing
> described was later dubbed the “Von Neumann
> architecture” — but modern historians generally agree it came
> from Turing, as, apparently, did Von Neumann himself.
>
> Asserting that "modern historians generally agree" that the
> von Neumann architecture came from Turing’s paper seems like a
> rather dubious claim to me. Particularly if you read Turing’s
> paper and look for a von Neumann architecture in it. At the
> Early Digital workshop in January I raised the question
> explicitly with a fairly good sampling of “modern historians”
> and nobody present supported the idea.
>
> Another exaggeration: “Turing joined a secret unit at
> Bletchley Park, northwest of London, where he helped design
> computers that were instrumental in breaking German codes.”
> Bombes weren’t computers, and Turing didn’t help to design
> Colossus (which personally I don’t think was a computer
> either, but that’s more controversial).
>
> People in the comments section seem to like it, but in an
> unusually highbrow example of internet discourse are calling
> out for more attention to the anitkythera device, Chrysippus,
> Pierce, Polish bombe creators, Thomas Aquinas, etc. Nobody
> seems to be objecting to the Turing claim, though someone does
> take the opportunity to insult Ada Lovelace.
>
> Best wishes,
>
> Tom
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Members [mailto:members-bounces at lists.sigcis.org
> <mailto:members-bounces at lists.sigcis.org>] On Behalf Of Len
> Shustek
> Sent: Thursday, March 23, 2017 3:11 PM
> To:members at lists.sigcis.org <mailto:members at lists.sigcis.org>
> Subject: [SIGCIS-Members] The latest inventor of the computer
>
> We're fully engaged in the invention of email, but we haven't
> had any new inventors of the computer in a while. The Atlantic
> is helping with that: "How Aristotle Created the Computer".
>
> https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/03/aristotle-computer/518697/
> <https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/03/aristotle-computer/518697/>
>
> The article is rather better than its title.
>
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