Digifesto

Tag: philosophy

December 21, 2014

Imre Lakatos and programming as dialectic

My dissertation is about the role of software in scholarly communication. Specifically, I’m interested in the way software code is itself a kind of scholarly communication, and how the informal communications around software production represent and constitute communities of scientists. I see science as a cognitive task accomplished by the sociotechnical system of science, including both scientists and their infrastructure. Looking particularly at scientist’s use of communications infrastructure such as email, issue trackers, and version control, I hope to study the mechanisms of the scientific process much like a neuroscientist studies the mechanisms of the mind by studying neural architecture and brainwave activity.

To get a grip on this problem I’ve been building BigBang, a tool for collecting data from open source projects and readying it for scientific analysis.

I have also been reading background literature to give my dissertation work theoretical heft and to procrastinate from coding. This is why I have been reading Imre Lakatos’ Proofs and Refutations (1976).

Proofs and Refutations is a brilliantly written book about the history of mathematical proof. In particular, it is an analysis of informal mathematics through an investigation of the letters written by mathematicians working on proofs about the Euler characteristic of polyhedra in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Whereas in the early 20th century, based on the work of Russel and Whitehead and others, formal logic was axiomatized, prior to this mathematical argumentation had less formal grounding. As a result, mathematicians would argue not just substantively about the theorem they were trying to prove or disprove, but also about what constitutes a proof, a conjecture, or a theorem in the first place. Lakatos demonstrates this by condensing 200+ years of scholarly communication into a fictional, impassioned classroom dialog where characters representing mathematicians throughout history banter about polyhedra and proof techniques.

What’s fascinating is how convincingly Lakatos presents the progress of mathematical understanding as an example of dialectical logic. Though he doesn’t use the word “dialectical” as far as I’m aware, he tells the story of the informal logic of pre-Russellian mathematics through dialog. But this dialog is designed to capture the timeless logic behind what’s been said before. It takes the reader through the thought process of mathematical discovery in abbreviated form.

I’ve had conversations with serious historians and ethnographers of science who would object strongly to the idea of a history of a scientific discipline reflecting a “timeless logic”. Historians are apt to think that nothing is timeless. I’m inclined to think that the objectivity of logic persists over time much the same way that it persists over space and between subjects, even illogical ones, hence its power. These are perhaps theological questions.

What I’d like to argue (but am not sure how) is that the process of informal mathematics presented by Lakatos is strikingly similar to that used by software engineers. The process of selecting a conjecture, then of writing a proof (which for Lakatos is a logical argument whether or not it is sound or valid), then having it critiqued with counterexamples, which may either be global (counter to the original conjecture) or local (counter to a lemma), then modifying the proof, then perhaps starting from scratch based on a new insight… all this reads uncannily like the process of debugging source code.

The argument for this correspondence is strengthened by later work in theory of computation and complexity theory. I learned this theory so long ago I forget who to attribute it to, but much of the foundational work in computer science was the establishment of a correspondence between classes of formal logic and classes of programming languages. So in a sense its uncontroversial within computer science to consider programs to be proofs.

As I write I am unsure whether I’m simply restating what’s obvious to computer scientists in an antiquated philosophical language (a danger I feel every time I read a book, lately) or if I’m capturing something that could be an interesting synthesis. But my point is this: that if programming language design and the construction of progressively more powerful software libraries is akin to the expanding of formal mathematical knowledge from axiomatic grounds, then the act of programming itself is much more like the informal mathematics of pre-Russellian mathematics. Specifically, in that it is unaxiomatic and proofs are in play without necessarily being sound. When we use a software system, we are depending necessarily on a system of imperfected proofs that we fix iteratively through discovered counterexamples (bugs).

Is it fair to say, then, that whereas the logic of software is formal, deductive logic, the logic of programming is dialectical logic?

Bear with me; let’s presume it is. That’s a foundational idea of my dissertation work. Proving or disproving it may or may not be out of scope of the dissertation itself, but it’s where it’s ultimately headed.

The question is whether it is possible to develop a formal understanding of dialectical logic through a scientific analysis of the software collaboration. (see a mathematical model of collective creativity). If this could be done, then we could then build better software or protocols to assist this dialectical process.

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March 31, 2013

deep thoughts by jack handy

Information transfer just is the coming-into-dependence of two variables, which under the many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics means the entanglement of the “worlds” of each variable (and, by extension, the networks of causally related variables of which they are a part). Information exchange collapses possibilities.
This holds up whether you take a subjectivist view of reality (and probability–Bayesian probability properly speaking) or an objectivist view. At their (dialectical?) limit, the two “irreconcilable” paradigms converge on a monist metaphysics that is absolutely physical and also ideal. (This was recognized by Hegel, who was way ahead of the game in a lot of ways.) It is the ideality of nature that allows it to be mathematized, though its important to note that mathematization does not exclude engagement with nature through other modalities, e.g. the emotional, the narrative, etc.

This means that characterizing the evolution of networks of information exchange by their physical properties (limits of information capacity of channels, etc.) is something to be embraced to better understand their impact on e.g. socially constructed reality, emic identity construction, etc. What the mathematics provide is a representation of what remains after so many diverse worlds are collapsed.

A similar result, representing a broad consensus, might be attained dialectically, specifically through actual dialog. Whereas the mathematical accounting is likely to lead to reduction to latent variables that may not coincide with the lived experience of participants, a dialectical approach is more likely to result in a synthesis of perspectives at a higher level of abstraction. (Only a confrontation with nature as the embodiment of unconscious constraints is likely to force us to confront latent mechanisms.)

Whether or not such dialectical synthesis will result in a singular convergent truth is unknown, with various ideologies taking positions on the matter as methodological assumptions. Haraway’s feminist epistemology, eschewing rational consensus in favor of interperspectival translation, rejects a convergent (scientific, and she would say masculine) truth. But does this stand up to the simple objection that Haraway’s own claims about truth and method transcend individual perspective, making he guilty of performative contradiction?

Perhaps a deeper problem with the consensus view of truth, which I heard once from David Weinberger, is that the structure of debate may have fractal complexity. The fractal pluralectic can fray into infinite and infinitesimal disagreement at its borders. I’ve come around to agreeing with this view, uncomfortable as it is. However, within the fractal pluralectic we can still locate a convergent perspective based on the network topology of information flow. Some parts of the network are more central and brighter than others.

A critical question is to what extent the darkness and confusion in the dissonant periphery can be included within the perspective of the central, convergent parts of the network. Is there necessarily a Shadow? Without the noise, can there be a signal?

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September 28, 2012

dreams of reason

Begin insomniac academic blogging:

Dave Lester has explained his strategy in graduate school as “living agily”, a reference to agile software development.

In trying to navigate the academic world, I find myself sniffing the air through conversations, email exchanges, tweets. Since this feels like part of my full time job, I have been approaching the task with gusto and believe I am learning rapidly.

Intellectual fashions shift quickly. A year ago I first heard the term “digital humanities”. At the time, it appeared to be controversial but on the rise. Now, it seems like something people are either disillusioned with or pissed about. (What’s this based on? A couple conversations this week, a few tweets. Is that sufficient grounds to reify a ‘trend’?)

I have no dog in that race yet. I can’t claim to understand what “digital humanities” means. But from what I gather, it represents a serious attempt to approach text in its quantitative/qualitative duality.

It seems that such a research program would: (a) fall short of traditional humanities methods at first, due to the primitive nature of the tools available, (b) become more insightful as the tools develop, and so (c) be both disgusting and threatening to humanities scholars who would prefer that their industry not be disrupted.

I was reminded through an exchange with some Facebook Marxists that Hegel wrote about the relationship between the quantitative and the qualitative. I forget if quantity was a moment in transition to quality, or the other way around, or if they bear some mutual relationship, for Hegel.

I’m both exhausted about and excited that in order to understand the evolution of the environment I’m in, and make strategic choices about how to apply myself, I have to (re?)read some Hegel. I believe the relevant sections are this and this from his Science of Logic.

This just in! Information about why people are outraged by digital humanities!

There we have it. Confirmation that outrage at digital humanities is against the funding of research based on the assumption that “that formal characteristics of a text may also be of importance in calling a fictional text literary or non-literary, and good or bad”–i.e., that some aspects of literary quality may be reducible to quantitative properties of the text.

A lot of progress has been made in psychology by assuming that psychological properties–manifestly qualitative–supervene on quantitatively articulated properties of physical reality. The study of neurocomputation, for example, depends on this. This leads to all sorts of cool new technology, like prosthetic limbs and hearing aids and combat drones controlled by dreaming children (potentially).

So, is it safe to say that if you’re against digital humanities, you are against the unremitting march of technical progress? I suppose I could see why one would be, but I think that’s something we have to take a gamble on, steering it as we go.

In related news, I am getting a lot out of my course on statistical learning theory. Looking up something I wanted to include in this post just now about what I’ve been learning, I found this funny picture:

One thing that’s great about this picture is how it makes explicit how, in a model of the mind adopted by statistical cognitive science theorists, The World is understood by us through a mentally internal Estimator whose parameters are strictly speaking quantitative. They are quantitative because they are posited to instantiate certain algorithms, such as those derived by statistical learning theorists. These algorithmic functions presumably supervene on a neurocomputational substrate.

But that’s a digression. What I wanted to say is how exciting belief propagation algorithms for computing marginal probabilities on probabilistic graphical models are!

What’s exciting about them is the promise they hold for the convergence of opinion onto correct belief based on a simple algorithm. Each node in a network of variables listens to all of its neighbors. Occasionally (on a schedule whose parameters are free for optimization to context) the node will synthesize the state of all of its neighbors except one, then push that “message” to its neighbor, who is listening…

…and so on, recursively. This algorithm has nice mathematically guaranteed convergence properties when the underlying graph has no cycles. Meaning, the algorithm finds the truth about the marginal probabilities of the nodes in a guaranteed amount of time.

It also has some nice empirically determined properties when the underlying graph has cycles.

The metaphor is loose, at this point. If I could dream my thesis into being at this moment, it would be a theoretical reduction of discourse on the internet (as a special case of discourse in general) to belief propagation on probabilistic graphical models. Ideally, it would have to account for adversarial agents within the system (i.e. it would have to be analyzed for its security properties), and support design recommendations for technology that catalyzed the process.

I think it’s possible. Not done alone, of course, but what projects are ever really undertaken alone?

Would it be good for the world? I’m not sure. Maybe if done right.

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July 22, 2012

The Shame or Shine Lotto

Consider the following Massively Multiplier On-line Game:

  • The game is strictly opt in. Nobody is forced to play the game.
  • Upon joining, some set of personal details is tracked and saved by the game. Purchasing data, tax records, …hell, legal record, personal messages?
  • Once per day, N players are selected at random and the data available on them are released into the public domain.
  • Members can look up to see whether others are playing the game. In addition to identifying information, they can see what information a player has agreed to have tracked.

It’s the Shame or Shine Lotto! Every day, there is a chance you will be roasted or toasted for the information you’ve agreed to uncertainly share.

Would you play this game?

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April 11, 2012

Defining information with Dretske

On Dretske's The Epistemology of Belief

I prepared these slides to present Fred Dretske’s paper “The Epistemology of Belief” to a class I’m taking this semester, ‘Concepts of Information’, taught by Paul Duguid and Geoff Nunberg.

Somewhere along the line I realised that if I was put on earth for one reason and one reason only, it was to make slide decks about epistemology.

I’ve had a serious interest in philosophy as a student and as a…hobbyist? can you say that?…for my entire thinking life. I considered going to graduate school for it before tossing the idea for more practical pursuits. So it comes as a delightful surprise that I’ve found an opportunity to read and work with philosophy at a graduate level through my program.

A difficult issue for a “School of Information” is defining what information is. I’ve gathered from conversations with faculty that there is an acknowledged intellectual tussle over the identity of iSchools which hinges in part on the meaning of the word. There seems to me to be roughly two ideologies at play: the cyberneticist ideology that sought to unify Shannon’s information theory, computer science, management science, economics, AI, and psychology under a coherent definition of information on the one hand, and the softer social science view that ‘information’ is a polysemous term which refers variously to newspapers and the stuff mediated by “information technology” in a loose sense but primarily as a social phenomenon.

As I’ve been steeped in the cyberneticist tradition but still consider myself literate in English and capable of recognizing social phenomena, it bothers me that people don’t see all this as just talking about the same thing in different ways.

I figured coming into the program that this was an obvious point that was widely accepted. It’s in a way nice to see that this is controversial and the arguments for this view are either unknown, unarticulated, or obscure, because that means I have some interesting work ahead of me.

This slide deck was a first stab at the problem: tying Dretske’s persuasive account of a qualitative definition of ‘information about’ to the relevant concept of Shannon’s information theory. I hope to see how far I can push this in later work. (At the point where is proves impossible, as opposed to merely difficult or non-obvious, then we’ll have discovered something new!)

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July 7, 2010

Dewey’s Social Ethics

From Elizabeth Andersons’ excellent Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy article on (John) Dewey’s Moral Philosophy. Emphasis mine:

As a progressive liberal, Dewey advocated numerous social reforms such as promoting the education, employment, and enfranchisement of women, social insurance, the progressive income tax, and laws protecting the rights of workers to organize labor unions. However, he stressed the importance of improving methods of moral inquiry over advocating particular moral conclusions, given that the latter are always subject to revision in light of new evidence.

Thus, the main focus of Dewey’s social ethics concerns the institutional arrangements that influence the capacity of people to conduct moral inquiry intelligently. Two social domains are critical for promoting this capacity: schools, and civil society. Both needed to be reconstructed so as to promote experimental intelligence and wider sympathies. Dewey wrote numerous works on education, and established the famous Laboratory School at the University of Chicago to implement and test his educational theories. He was also a leading advocate of the comprehensive high school, as opposed to separate vocational and college prepatory schools. This was to promote the social integration of different economic classes, a prerequisite to enlarging their mutual understanding and sympathies. Civil society, too, needed to be reconstructed along more democratic lines. This involved not just expanding the franchise, but improving the means of communication among citizens and between citizens and experts, so that public opinion could be better informed by the experiences and problems of citizens from different walks of life, and by scientific discoveries (PP). Dewey regarded democracy as the social embodiment of experimental intelligence informed by sympathy and respect for the other members of society (DE 3, 89–94). Unlike dictatorial and oligarchic societies, democratic ones institutionalize feedback mechanisms (free speech) for informing officeholders of the consequences for all of the policies they adopt, and for sanctioning them (periodic elections) if they do not respond accordingly.

Dewey’s moral epistemology thus leads naturally to his political philosophy. The reconstruction of moral theory is accomplished by replacing fixed moral rules and ends with an experimental method that treats norms for valuing as hypotheses to be tested in practice, in light of their widest consequences for everyone. To implement this method requires institutions that facilitate three things: (1) habits of critical, experimental inquiry; (2) widespread communication of the consequences of instituting norms, and (3) extensive sympathy, so that the consequences of norms for everyone are treated seriously in appraising them and imagining and adopting alternatives. The main institutions needed to facilitate these things are progressive schools and a democratic civil society. Experimentalism in ethics leads to a democratic political philosophy.

My suspicion is that John Dewey’s ethics would provide a substantive philosophical foundation for the latest swathe of open government and “Gov 2.0” initiatives, if anyone bothered looking for one.

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