Because there was no user in art: imagining a technological sublime

This paper contrasts the procedures of science and art by examining the processes of the evolution of thought, and of the context which grounds thought, in both families of disciplines. The decisive difference is the attitude towards reproducibility: in science, reproducibility is sought after, whereas, in contrast, variation (either deliberately produced or arising out of random, uncontrollable processes) is an essential part of the creative process. After reviewing models from logic and programming, which give useful insights into the relation between thought and context, the work of Otto Neurath on the possibly discontinuous evolution of cluster concepts is examined. This body of theory is then applied to music, art and performance, and the relations between them, reflecting upon the current tendency of industrial design and product engineering to construct a smooth, frictionless world inhabited by a fictional being called The User

A Fuzzy Petri Nets Model for Computing With Words

Motivated by Zadeh's paradigm of computing with words rather than numbers, several formal models of computing with words have recently been proposed. These models are based on automata and thus are not well-suited for concurrent computing. In this paper, we incorporate the well-known model of concurrent computing, Petri nets, together with fuzzy set theory and thereby establish a concurrency model of computing with words--fuzzy Petri nets for computing with words (FPNCWs). The new feature of such fuzzy Petri nets is that the labels of transitions are some special words modeled by fuzzy sets. By employing the methodology of fuzzy reasoning, we give a faithful extension of an FPNCW which makes it possible for computing with more words. The language expressiveness of the two formal models of computing with words, fuzzy automata for computing with words and FPNCWs, is compared as well. A few small examples are provided to illustrate the theoretical development.Comment: double columns 14 pages, 8 figure

Topics in Programming Languages, a Philosophical Analysis through the case of Prolog

[EN]Programming languages seldom find proper anchorage in philosophy of logic, language and science. is more, philosophy of language seems to be restricted to natural languages and linguistics, and even philosophy of logic is rarely framed into programming languages topics. The logic programming paradigm and Prolog are, thus, the most adequate paradigm and programming language to work on this subject, combining natural language processing and linguistics, logic programming and constriction methodology on both algorithms and procedures, on an overall philosophizing declarative status. Not only this, but the dimension of the Fifth Generation Computer system related to strong Al wherein Prolog took a major role. and its historical frame in the very crucial dialectic between procedural and declarative paradigms, structuralist and empiricist biases, serves, in exemplar form, to treat straight ahead philosophy of logic, language and science in the contemporaneous age as well. In recounting Prolog's philosophical, mechanical and algorithmic harbingers, the opportunity is open to various routes. We herein shall exemplify some: - the mechanical-computational background explored by Pascal, Leibniz, Boole, Jacquard, Babbage, Konrad Zuse, until reaching to the ACE (Alan Turing) and EDVAC (von Neumann), offering the backbone in computer architecture, and the work of Turing, Church, Gödel, Kleene, von Neumann, Shannon, and others on computability, in parallel lines, throughly studied in detail, permit us to interpret ahead the evolving realm of programming languages. The proper line from lambda-calculus, to the Algol-family, the declarative and procedural split with the C language and Prolog, and the ensuing branching and programming languages explosion and further delimitation, are thereupon inspected as to relate them with the proper syntax, semantics and philosophical élan of logic programming and Prolog

The ambiguous utility of psychometrics for the interpretative foundation of socially relevant avatars

Accepted for publication in Theory & PsychologyInternational audienceThe persisting debates that measurement in psychology elicits can be explained by the conflict between two aspiration types. One, the epistemologic aspiration, resting on the search for scientific truth, and two, the social aspiration, resting on the demonstration of a capacity to contribute to psychological assessment problems in particular. Psychometrics answer essentially to psychology's demand for social utility, leading to the quasi-exclusive attribution of importance to quantitative interpretation. For psychology to be considered an empirical science, it has to establish its capacity for the measurement of psychological phenomena, even if this means that it recognizes that these phenomena are essentially qualitative

The aesthetic theories of John Dewey and Susanne K. Langer.

Thesis (M.A.)--Boston University Includes bibliographical references (leaves 163-165).The purpose of this thesis is to compare and contrast the aesthetics of John Dewey and Susanne K. Langer. The first chapter comprises the introduction, in which the specific purposes, methods, limitations, and definitions of the thesis are presented. [TRUNCATED] Chapter four, the final chapter of this thesis, presents a comparison and contrast, and a brief evaluation, of the aesthetics of Dewey and Langer. The views of Dewey and Langer, it is suggested, diverge and contrast on at least these six issues: the nature of philosophy, the purpose of aesthetics, the characterization of appreciation, the nature of perception, creation, and form in art. On the other hand, their views of expression, meaning, organic form, intuition, and of the relation of art to society seem to be in agreement, although their reasoning on these subjects is often very different. The evaluative section of this chapter consists of a formulation of three problems that may well be raised in connection with each author's theory. In regard to Langer's position, it is suggested that her theory of primary illusions may oversimplify the nature of aesthetic appreciation; that she has not given sufficient reason for excluding actual feelings from art; and, that it is not clear how art can be significant of felt-life if there is not, at least, an empathic projection of feelings in the aesthetic response. In connection with Dewey's position it is suggested that he has perhaps unnecessarily excluded the notion of "distance" as too passive, whereas it does not mean passivity alone; that the demands placed on artist and appreciator by the reciprocal relations of undergoing and doing may well be excessive; and, that it is not clear how art is distinguishable from other areas of experience if the experience that is art can be conferred on the experience of the community as a whole