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tonymorris/working-program.md

Last active August 29, 2015 14:02
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Working program
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working-program.md

Working

  • A thing, such as a computer program, is described as working if an ultimate goal for that thing can be stated and that thing meets that goal.

  • A thing, such as a computer program, is described as approximately working, if an ultimate goal for that thing can be stated and that thing meets a significant set of goals that comprise the ultimate goal.

  • A thing, such as a computer program, is described as not working, if an ultimate goal for that thing can be stated and that thing does not meet the ultimate goal, or meets a trivially insignificant set of goals that compromise the ultimate goal.

  • The method by which a goal is broken into sub-goals is formally prescribed, by an epistemological effort and by drawing on fundamental concepts of computing. The method is summarised below.

  • A definition is useful if it can be used to construct inferences that coincide with observations.

  • There does not exist another useful definition of a working thing, such as a computer program, except for the one described here.

Convergence

  • All (decidable) working programs are reduce to a set of decision problems.

  • A program is a function problem and therefore, may give complex answers (not necessarily a decision).

  • An undecidable program may or may not be working. Since this question is undecidable, it is discarded, because it does not give rise to a useful inferences (and therefore, a goal).

  • A goal is composed of two or more sub-goals, if those sub-goals exist independently of each other as goals themselves (potentially disparate from the result of their composition) and subsequently, give rise to a (decidable or undecidable) working program by a process of reverse engineering.

@cfreeman
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What are the thresholds involved in separating the three thing categories?

I would be keen to learn more about the method deferred.

I also imagine that 'A definition is useful if it can be used to construct inferences that coincide with observations.' would be subjective and vary considerably from implementor to implementor.

@benwazza
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A non-working program by the above definition could still be 'useful' and provide value in real terms. I think this is where the usual arguments diverge - one being about the definition of 'working' and the counter side being about what is 'useful'.

@tonymorris
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Programs that do not work, are by definition not useful, in the context.

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