Re: terminal von Neumann

[James N Rose <***>]

Dear Howard,

I read with -extreme- interest this very nice citation filled
post you offered the list.  I appreciate your rigor of
evaluation of both von Neumann's and Rosen's positions,
and do see why you reject RR's perception that von Neumann
conflated computation with construction.

Von Neumann's remarks as you cited them do indicate a
separation .. of sorts. I say 'of sorts' because both
RR and von Neumann were captives of a mindset which
basically could see no alternative to hardware/software
dichotomy. They represented two tigers acting like
Pauli particles .. forced to share a small territory
of describable thought, doing their absolute best to
'holistic' without exception and yet be distinguishable
from the other at all turns.

My evaluation of their concepts is that RR was correct
but probably lax in explicating von Neumann.

                                     . . .  . . .
                           software  ha. .
                  software hardware
        software  hardware
 . . .    . . re
 . . .


von Neuman thought he was delineating separate
hardware~software tiers (computation distinct from
construction) and Rosen realized that the vertical
relation of tiers effectively made any tier the
software to produce any subsequent tier.

In fact, Rosen ought to have embraced conflation
as the essential reality, but probably didn't
realize that step.  I don't know ; am presuming by
the evidence of posts and citations I've read here.

At some point .. IMO .. there -is- a place
to identify a foundation hardware=software
and to also appreciate -that- nature of
constructive-actualizing organization .. no
matter what tier or system being examined.

As adamant as von Neumann seems to have been to
keep computation distinct from construction,
conflation was the 'more important' stuff he
unwittingly threw away on the face of it, and
refused to acknowledge the unavoidable presence
of in the essence of his presentations.  One eye
on activities and a separate eye on "imagining"
what the first eye could be seeing.


-- This schemata was the premise of my question
to you a week or so ago, Howard: if automata-
generating-automata is the nature of systemic
organization, then qualia of dynamics are
pre-ordinately present in prior tiers of order;
we ought to be able to, and ought to, identify
these qualia in their naive or incomplete states
of presentation, and comfortably talk about
them as 'animate' in one set of extended configurations
and as 'pre-animate' in the less extensive presentations
and operational phases.

There is just no other way to finally arrive at an
extensive and 'natural' whole-system universe.


Jamie Rose
Ceptual Institute
04/02/04