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<p>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 <i>Atlantic</i> piece has its problems, but is
considerably saner than its headline. <br>
</p>
<p>"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 <i>TVGoHome</i> 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." <br>
</p>
<p>JS<br>
</p>
<br>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 23 Mar 17 21:39, Seamus Sweeney
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote
cite="mid:CABXx8ndmskWe1O11Dgg-oq2vvY5AKg-cj0mN7-GKGgWd=ZmAyg@mail.gmail.com"
type="cite">
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
<div dir="ltr">As often happens, dear old Ireland can claim an
even earlier invention: - <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://csiweb.ucd.ie/content/symbol-vec-newgrange">https://csiweb.ucd.ie/content/symbol-vec-newgrange</a>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><span
style="color:rgb(102,102,102);font-family:tahoma;font-size:12px;background-color:rgb(239,239,239)">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.</span><br>
</div>
</div>
<div class="gmail_extra"><br>
<div class="gmail_quote">On 23 March 2017 at 21:34, Thomas Haigh
<span dir="ltr"><<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:thomas.haigh@gmail.com" target="_blank">thomas.haigh@gmail.com</a>></span>
wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0
.8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div link="blue" vlink="purple" lang="EN-US">
<div class="m_5899476957171025353WordSection1">
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">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.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">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.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">Tom</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><a moz-do-not-send="true"
name="m_5899476957171025353__MailEndCompose"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif"> </span></a></p>
<span></span>
<div>
<div style="border:none;border-top:solid #e1e1e1
1.0pt;padding:3.0pt 0in 0in 0in">
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">From:</span></b><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">
David C. Brock [mailto:<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:dcb@dcbrock.net" target="_blank">dcb@dcbrock.net</a>]
<br>
<b>Sent:</b> Thursday, March 23, 2017 4:21 PM<br>
<b>To:</b> Thomas Haigh <<a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:thomas.haigh@gmail.com"
target="_blank">thomas.haigh@gmail.com</a>><br>
<b>Cc:</b> David Brock <<a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:dcb@dcbrock.net" target="_blank">dcb@dcbrock.net</a>>;
Len Shustek <<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:len@shustek.com" target="_blank">len@shustek.com</a>>;
<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:members@lists.sigcis.org"
target="_blank">members@lists.sigcis.org</a><br>
<b>Subject:</b> Re: [SIGCIS-Members] The latest
inventor of the computer</span></p>
</div>
</div>
<div>
<div class="h5">
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">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.</p>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<div>
<blockquote
style="margin-top:5.0pt;margin-bottom:5.0pt">
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal">On Mar 23, 2017, at
4:48 PM, Thomas Haigh <<a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:thomas.haigh@gmail.com"
target="_blank">thomas.haigh@gmail.com</a>>
wrote:</p>
</div>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">Better
than the title, perhaps, but
everything is relative.</span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif"> </span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">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.”<span
class="m_5899476957171025353apple-converted-space"> </span><a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.tomandmaria.com/Tom/Writing/CACMActuallyTuringDidNotInventTheComputer.pdf"
target="_blank"><span
style="color:#954f72">http://www.<wbr>tomandmaria.com/Tom/Writing/<wbr>CACMActuallyTuringDidNotInvent<wbr>TheComputer.pdf</span></a></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif"> </span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">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:</span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif"> </span></p>
</div>
<div style="margin-left:.5in">
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">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….</span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif"> </span></p>
</div>
<div style="margin-left:.5in">
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">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.</span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif"> </span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">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.
</span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif"> </span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">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).</span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
class="m_5899476957171025353apple-converted-space"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif"> </span></span><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif"></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
class="m_5899476957171025353apple-converted-space"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">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.</span></span><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif"></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
class="m_5899476957171025353apple-converted-space"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif"> </span></span><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif"></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">Best
wishes,</span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif"> </span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">Tom</span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif"> </span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">-----Original
Message-----<br>
From: Members [<a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:members-bounces@lists.sigcis.org"
target="_blank"><span
style="color:#954f72">mailto:members-bounces@lists.<wbr>sigcis.org</span></a>]
On Behalf Of Len Shustek<br>
Sent: Thursday, March 23, 2017 3:11 PM<br>
To:<span
class="m_5899476957171025353apple-converted-space"> </span><a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:members@lists.sigcis.org"
target="_blank"><span
style="color:#954f72">members@lists.sigcis.org</span></a><br>
Subject: [SIGCIS-Members] The latest
inventor of the computer</span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif"> </span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">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".</span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif"><a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/03/aristotle-computer/518697/"
target="_blank"><span
style="color:windowtext;text-decoration:none">https://www.theatlantic.com/<wbr>technology/archive/2017/03/<wbr>aristotle-computer/518697/</span></a></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">The
article is rather better than its
title.</span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif"> </span></p>
</div>
<div>
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<pre wrap="">_______________________________________________
This email is relayed from members at sigcis.org, the email discussion list of SHOT SIGCIS. Opinions expressed here are those of the member posting and are not reviewed, edited, or endorsed by SIGCIS. The list archives are at <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://lists.sigcis.org/pipermail/members-sigcis.org/">http://lists.sigcis.org/pipermail/members-sigcis.org/</a> and you can change your subscription options at <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://lists.sigcis.org/listinfo.cgi/members-sigcis.org">http://lists.sigcis.org/listinfo.cgi/members-sigcis.org</a></pre>
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