2014年9月21日 上午2:39于 "Left Right" 写道: > > Sorry, I really only registered to submit a couple of bugs, but I > couldn't miss the opportunity! Well, you see, there is a very well > known ethical school of thinking which does not think that ethics is > relative (I don't believe that too, but for other reasons). Well, I think the topic becomes a little ridiculous and OT. I don't believe ethics is relative too, in essential. But it's no related to the original topic of thread, and it's interesting IMO. No matter what the ethics is, it's a good point to hack the compiler & OS to find the problem and solve it. Please don't find some reasons to avoid such a hack. I understand it's hard hack. But we can't say it's unnecessary just because most of people in the world is friendly and no evil. Immanuel > Kant is by far the best known proponent of universal ethics. I also > happen to work on my future thesis, which is about formalization of > ethics (as you would guess, if that's possible to formalize, or, at > least, I believe so, then I also must believe it to be universal). The > examples I like to give in this debate (of course there are other > famous school of ethical thought which disagree with this) is the > example of an elevator, which must implement an ethical program in > order to be considered functional (w/o going into detail, it is > possible to construct an elevator, which will be more efficient than > those we use normally, but it would be perceived as unfair). > > To put a brief argument for Kant's view of the problem: he believed > that the right thing to do is to act freely, he also believed that > given the opportunity to act freely everyone would choose the same > strategy. These ideas seemed quite solid at the time, but not so much > any more. The world of philosophy of the day was deterministic and had > very weird concepts of what reality is made of :) Nevertheless, many > adopt his categorical imperative as a moral norm (which I don't think > anyone should, but that's a separate story). > > Another great ethical thinker, who believed in universal ethics is > Aristotle. Surprisingly, he has a much better grounded view to offer. > The collection of his view also known in the modern world as teleology > survived a lot of paradigm shifts. (I subscribe to this idea too). It > was mostly advanced by philosophers of Abrahamic religions, and so it > is known in the modern world as Tomis or Aviccenism, but it doesn't > have to be religious in nature. I think it was just comfortable for > religions, which wanted to be universal to have a doctrine, which also > wanted to be universal. Put shortly, the premise of this doctrine is > that it is good to give which is due, and it is bad otherwise. Which, > kind of, transfers the responsibility of answering the question of > what is good to what is due, but, in the same sense as we have logical > system which don't define what is true and what is false (this is > mandatory defined outside the system), and they are still useful. > > The counterexamples of ethical thought, where good and bad were > considered relative in one sense or another: of course utilitarianism, > libertarianism. Basically, everything that has nowadays to do with the > humaism of the Western world thrives on an assumption that ethics are > relative, perhaps to an individual, maybe to a group, or maybe the > time dimension makes them relative - depends on what philosopher you > pick. > > ---- > > I also read the OP, and, I think that there are thoughts that could be > useful, but it is unhelpful that the reaction creates a conflicting > situation. I would suggest the following proposition to Ian Grant, I > think it may be helpful: > > It is possible to build a good, solid mathematical model (and it seems > like you are into that kind of programming, since you mention Dijkstra > and Milner very often), but it will not map well to the actual > observed phenomena. This is very well known problem in areas like > molecular biology, particle physics and economics / social studies. > I.e. for example, it is possible to come up with a model, which, given > some input DNA will make interesting inferences about it, but will be > completely worthless for making predictions about how actual ribosomes > synthesize polypeptides. Quite similarly, the hypothesis suggested by > Milner, I think it was "properly typed programs can't be buggy" > appears not to hold water. It is a good, consistent, even solid > theory, but it doesn't capture the nature of programming. And it > doesn't deliver on the promise. Programs in ML, too, have bugs. > I don't say this to discourage you, I think that searching for this > kind of models is important. I just wanted to say that maybe your > conclusions have been premature and lacking the statistical evidence > (lack of evidence isn't in itself a proof of the contrary). > > Best, > > Oleg >