Notes Folio n011101 Miser Synopsis Concepts Questions from Bill Anderson

miser>notes> 2001>11> n011101d> 0.01 2017-08-29 16:40

From: Anderson, William L
Sent: Wednesday, October 04, 2000 08:34
Subject: RE: MISER: System, Theory, Model, Interpretation


Dennis, I've finally been able to carve out some time to look at the Miser site and to think about this nomenclature thing.

Not having many books with me (all in storage, including Putnam) I looked in the dictionary to check on "model" and "interpretation." Webster's New World Dictionary yields the following:

        model: a representation to be copied; a pattern is a model that is to be strictly followed.
So, what kind of models are we talking about here? What kind of flexibility
in copying are permissible?

        interpretation: explanation, meaning, translation, exposition.
This is really rich, but without going crazy with word games, I think some working definitions are needed.

This is also my comment regarding the Miser themes. I know you're aiming at understanding; understanding of computation, computers, and the human/computer DMZ (joke!). So I'd like to suggest some changes to the 7 Miser project themes as they relate to Miser Obs.

1. Universality:
        what does "elementary structure" mean? as contrasted with what? this could read 

        having from the very beginning a structure ...

2. Completeness:
        seems OK, but for those unsure of what "computational completeness" is, this is a bit of a mystery

3. Interpretation:
        I find this whole sentence confusing; too many repetitions of "entities" and "interpretation." I don't have a solution yet.

4. Representation:
        OK, but kind of circular. I'm trying to find a description of representation that will make this more meaningful.

5. Extensibility:

        my version is

"demonstrating a computational system's capacity for augmenting and adding to its internal representations while preserving testability of the system to theoretical analysis"

        but still a mouthful.

6. Fidelity:
        circular statement, is this better?

        "confirming an implementation's correspondence to a theoretical 

7. Realization:
        replace "mechanizing" which is not a word with  making operational the mechanism's ...

        but I still think the word "mechanism" is confusing here.

Anyway, I need to think about this some more. Hope these comments are
helpful.

Bill

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