The QuestionConcerning Computing:

Syed Mustafa AliComputing Department

The Open University

Later Heideggerian Musings

8-02-01

The Why of Questioning

“The biggest single need in computertechnology is not for improved circuitry orenlarged capacity or prolonged memoryor miniaturised containers. but for betterquestions and better use of theanswers.”

– Norman Cousins, The Computer and The Poet (1966)

Some Wayward Questions

Is computing in crisis ?– Maybe, Perhaps, Yes!

What is the nature of this crisis ?– Subsidence (or a shifting of foundations)

The Second Coming - A Manifesto by D.Gelertner(www.edge.org/3rd_culture/gelertner/)

What is computing for it to be in crisis ?– Can we answer this question given that the

foundations of computing are shifting ?

The Way of Questioning

Questioning as building a way or way-ing

Way-ing as hermeneutic and circular– Existentially and historically situated

reflexive interpretation as a foundation forcritical inquiry

“A” questions and “The” question– ontical (factical, phenomenal) vs. ontological

(foundational, essential) questioning

A Way Into Way-ing

The works of Brian Cantwell Smith

On the Origin of Objects– (Cambridge, Mass., MIT Press: 1996)

The Foundations of Computing God, Approximately • 4 One Hundred Billion Lines of C++ Metaphysics for the 21st Century

– www.ageofsig.org/people/bcsmith/papers

Foundations of Computing

Objective

– A comprehensive theory of computation

Criteria for theoretical sufficiency

– Empirical– Conceptual– Cognitive

Foundations of Computing

Empirical (or praxical)

what people treat as computational iscomputational (“computation in the wild”)

Conceptual non-circular resolution of grounding problem

(representation+semantics computation)

Cognitive tenable foundation for computational theory of

mind (or cognitivism)

Heidegger (andSearle) on“as”-ness

Heidegger (andSearle) on“as”-ness

Intentionality

Six Construals of Computation

1 Formal Symbol Manipulation– semantics-independent ?!

2 Effective Computability– abstract machine (what can be

done, how hard)

3 Algorithm Execution– rule-generated behaviour

4 Digital State Mechanics– automaton with finite disjoint

set of internally homogeneousstates

5 Information Processing– storing, manipulating,

displaying information(whatever that might be)

6 Physical Symbol Systems– embodied symbolic interaction

Six Construals of Computation

“When subjected to the empirical demandsof practice and the conceptual demandsof cognitive science, all six construals fail- for deep, overlapping, but distinct,reasons.”

WHY ?

Problems of Construal

Essential Differences

– Topological Internal/structural/constitutional (deep) External/functional/behavioural (surface)

– Semantic Symbolic (1 and 3) Purely formal (2 and 4)

Problems of Construal

Types of Semantics

PROGRAMbegin proc Test(n,m)

if n=0 then …end

PROCESS(Programbehaviour)

WORLD

EFFECTIVE(CAUSAL)

PRAGMATIC,HERMENEUTIC,or something else(NOT necessarilycausal)

Problems of Construal

Formal systems and Physics

– effective computability as a mathematicaltheory of causality applying to all physicalentities not just computers

What does it mean to be “formal” ?

– precise, abstract, mathematical, a-contextual, digital, explicit, syntactic, non-semantic etc

Problems of Construal

Furthermore, what is “Information” ?– commodity (lay, colloquial usage)– entropy (algorithmic information theory)– meaning (semantic content, veridicality)

“The computer, darling child of theformal tradition, outstrips the bounds ofthe very tradition that gave rise to it”

Conclusions

There will be no theory of computation

because

Computation is not a (determinate,autonomous) subject matter.

On the contrary,

Computation is grounded in intentionality

On The Up-Side: Proposal

Computation as a complex practice, involvingthe design, construction, maintenance, anduse of

intentional systems

From computer science to computerengineering, computer

technology and computing practice

On The Up-Side: Proposal

Computation as a complex practice, involvingthe design, construction, maintenance, anduse of

intentional systems

From computer science to ?

On The Down-Side: Critique

We don’t have an adequate theoryof intentionality (or as-ness)

because

We don’t have an adequate theoryof ontology

A Plea From Here

Is thereanyone wecan turn tofor help ?

A Response From Where

YES!But first we

need toknow that

Ontology is the study of

The Single Question

SOURCE: http://www.theuniversityconcourse.com/I,3,3-12-1996/Marra.htm

Martin Heidegger (1889-1976):The Good, The Bad & The Ugly

THE GOOD– German Existential Phenomenologist– Author of Being & Time (1927)– Perhaps the most important

philosopher of the 20th century

THE BAD– Difficulty of his works

Is Heidegger being profound or is hea philosophical charlatan ?

THE UGLY– Member of the National Socialist

Party (1933-1934) To what extent (if at all) does his

politics contaminate his philosophy ?“He who thinks greatly,

must err greatly”“He who thinks greatly,

must err greatly”

What is Phenomenology ?

DEFINITION: Phenomenology (Husserl)

– The systematic analysis of consciousness andits contents

PROBLEMS

– Assumed Cartesian dualism (self and world)– Non-contextual view of self (bracketing of the world)– Prioritisation of consciousness vis-à-vis intentionality

FRAME PROBLEM

Phenomenological Ontology

DEFINITION: Phenomenology (Heidegger)

– The systematic analysis of Being and itsstructures

Existential (situated, indexical) Hermeneutic (reflexive) Historical (critical)

Okay, but what is ?

Being in Early Heidegger

NEGATIVE DEFINITION

Being is not a being

– not spirit– not substance– not matter– not energy– not information

Being is not ageneric predicate

POSITIVE DEFINITION

Being is as-ness

Being is the how ofpresencing of thatwhich presences

Being is

Metaphysics vs. Ontology

Metaphysics(Onto-theo-logy)

– Being as the first andmost universalground common toall beings

– Being as the highestground above allbeings and theground of itself

Ontology(Onto-phenomeno-logy)

– Being as always thebeing of a being

– Being as specific tothe being in question

– Being as finite anddependent onDasein

Who or what is Dasein ?

Dasein (Openness-for-Being)

– “That being for whom Being is an issue”

– Dasein is being-in-the-world (in-volved)

NB: This ‘in’ is not spatial but situational

– E.g. compare being-in-a-box with being-in-a-fix

– Dasein is the condition of the discoverability ofthe beings of the world

What is The World ?

The world is not the physical universe

The world is not a thing

The world is a “horizon” of encounterbetween Dasein and beings

The world is a network of meanings

The World in Early Heidegger

The world as a network of relations ofpurposefulness (or functionality)

Beings as equipment (ready-to-hand)

Pragmatic conception of world

Anthropocentric conception of world

E.g. The world of the student

The student and his/her world (only part of which was shown)disappears when an attempt is made to describe them in causal,

scientific terms (space-time-energy-matter)

Heidegger: Reaching the partsother philosophers cannot reach

It seems that anything and everything canbe looked at phenomenologically, from– history

Heidegger and the Role of the Historian, David Kosalka, www.geocities.com/SoHo/Cafe/8579/heid.htm

to– highway bridges

Highway Bridges and Feasts: Heidegger and Borgmann on How to Affirm Technology, H.L.Dreyfus,http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~frege/dreyfus/borgman.html

to– hip hop !

IN THE WORLD WITH HIPHOP AND HEIDEGGER: A Philosophical Investigation into "I'm Feeling You”,Charles Mudede, www.thestranger.com/2000-10-05/art.html

The Question Concerning Computing

Does the pragmatic (or equipmental)interpretation of world enable us todetermine the essence of computing ?

Or is the functional interpretation ofbeings (including computers andcomputation) merely preparatory ?

The Turn

Being in Later Heidegger

Being as the how of presencing of thatwhich presences

The meaning of Being as intelligibility(“as-ness”)

The truth of Being as unconcealment(Aletheia)

The how of unconcealment as ...

The Same-ing of The Fourfold

EARTH(SAVING)

SKY(RECEIVING)

MORTALS(INITIATING)

DIVINITIES(AWAITING)

WORLD-ING

EREIGNIS(THE LIGHTING OF THE WORLD)

The World-ing of The World

EARTH

SKY

MORTALS

DIVINITIES

EARTH

SKY

MORTALS

DIVINITIES

EARTH

SKY

MORTALS

DIVINITIES

The Thing-ing of The Thing

EARTH(HOLDING)

SKY(FILLING)

MORTALS(DRINKING)

DIVINITIES(COMMEMORATING)

GATHERING-APPROPRIATING-STAYING OF THE FOURFOLD

The essence of computing is by nomeans anything

computational (or computable)

Computing Beyond Computation

If Brian Cantwell Smith is right then

What is the essence of computing?

Computing as ...

Science ?– Science and Reflection (1954)

Technology ?– The Question Concerning Technology (1955)

Engineering ?– Building Dwelling Thinking (1951)

Art ?– The Origin of The Work of Art (1935)

Computing as Technology

Metaphysical(causality)– Functional artifacts

Ontological(intelligibility)– That which is

brought-forth viaanother

– A way of lettingunconceal

However, the essence oftechnology is by no means

anything technological

Technology

Techne

Poiesis

Aletheia

Computing as Engineering

Metaphysical(causality)– Conception and

Construction

Dwelling

Being

Cultivation

Ontological(intelligibility)– Building (unfolding),

Dwelling (preserving thefourfold in things so asto bring forth locations)

Building

Construction

Engineering Conception

Poetry and Poetry

Poetry belongs to the realm of fantasy.

Poetry, by contrast, is a “measuring” ofman’s belonging-to (or dwelling within) thesame-ing of the fourfold.

Crucially, poetry involves the visibleinclusion of the alien (absent) in the sightof the familiar (present).

The Poetic and The Unpoetic

“Poetry, as the authentic measuring ofthe dimension of dwelling, is the primalform of building.”

“Our unpoetic dwelling, its incapacity totake the measure, derives from acurious excess of frantic measuring andcalculating.”

… Poetically Man Dwells … (1951)

A Tentative Answer

Computing as a way of presencing via another– Computing as bringing-forth (poiesis)

Computing as a way of presencing in the same-ingof the fourfold– Computing as dwelling (poesis)

The essence of computing asPoetic-Poiesis and Poietic-Poesis

Afterthoughts:World-ing - The Danger

EARTH

SKY

MORTALS

DIVINITIES

Afterthoughts:Thing-ing - The Saving-Power

EARTH

SKY

MORTALS

DIVINITIES

GATHERING-APPROPRIATING-STAYING OF THE FOURFOLD