Computer Science is the purest science

It's the only system that can use itself to prove itself

>>1
Prove my halting anus.

Computer Science is neither about computers nor is it about science.

>>3
more deceiving then the devil

more worthless than religion


really certs can prove you are more competent than a fucking bs ESPECIALLY ms in Comp Sci

>>3
Well it certainly isn't about magic. It really depends on your definition of science. Some define science as the study of the natural work. Computer science is similar to physics and electrical engineering in that it's really just applied mathematics. The difference is that the mathematics that are applied to computer science is not mandated by nature.

>>4
>implying being A+ certified makes you more competent than holding an MS in comp sci

butthurt-poorfag-who-works-at-geek-squad detected!

>>5
Well it certainly isn't about magic.
http://www.newspells.com/gaylovespells.htm

>>6
i didn't know you hippies got wifi in your tents over at wall street

>>8
derp, we got 3G ipads

>>5
CS is most certainly about magic. Inside the computer live abstract data/instruction things that can be considered spirits. We as program writers conjure up these spirits by writing spells. In effect, we are wizards who conjure the spirits of the computer with our spells.

Dubs my dubs

>>10
YOU IN THERE PUT YOUR HANDS ON YOUR HEAD AND BACK SLOWLY AWAY FROM THE COMPUTER.
JUST LEAVE THE CRACK PIPE ON THE DESK, THANK YOU

>>10
whoh man, i think your done...

Can't logic and mathematics technically be used to prove themselves?

Isn't computer science an applied combination of logic and mathematics?

>>14
Gödel's incompleteness theorems

>>14
this entire thread is shit, don't waste your breath.

CS is a branch of mathematics AND a branch of engineering.

>>15
once we hit the singularity those theorems will be obsolete, and it'll be the golden era of CS

>>18
But not for us, for AIs.

>>19
Why not? Just become a substrate independent mind. Also, Godel's incompleteness theoremes will still apply, but their implications aren't as grim as some people think.

>not majoring in math

isshydt

As The Abelson mentioned in his famous lecture, Computer Science is a rotten name for the field, as we don't really fully understand yet what we're trying to do yet.

I believe in future generations, whatever becomes of Computer Science, and computation in general, will be regarded as the most important and fundamental of fields, more fundamental than physics or mathematics. After all, the Universe is starting to look far more computational in nature than anything else, and mathematics is merely a fuzzy Human language that captures abstract declarative concepts from the computational processes of our own minds, which themselves have emerged from the computational chaos of the Universe over the millennia. The only reason there appear to be mathematical truths is because there are computational truths.

Mathematicians are the ones following a religion and are the ones unable to see the forest for the trees.

>>14
No, see >>22

Mathematics, and the sub-field of logic, is a distillation of computation. Without our computational minds to interpret mathematics, to give the abstract mathematical objects meaning and semantics and apply the rules that govern transformations and relationships, it is nothing but useless scribbles.

>>22
mathematics is merely a fuzzy Human language
syntax-hating lispfag detected

>>22-23
Computation is still basically equivalent to Peano Arithmetic, or expressible in it. We cannot prove PA is consistent, but it's a very likely bet that it is.
We cannot say anything about (the physical existence or their consistency of) infinitary non-computable objects such as real numbers, hypercomputation, various set theories and ordinals higher than Aleph Null. The only thing we know as absolute is computation (if Church-Turing thesis is correct, which we cannot know, no more than we can know of PA's consistency).
>>24
It's true, but a lot of mathematics can be encoded exactly and verified using a theorem prover. I also don't see what this ha to do with Lisp (I'm not >>22), despite that I am a Lisper.

Computer Science is an accident created by the typewriter businesses when they hired logicians to make the government's big calculator thing work correctly; all while pouring the foundation of the academic discipline from the seeds of Bourbakian mathematics.

From that till now CS is a diverse hydra that belongs nowhere, yet has features ranging from math to applied monkey coding. When it is ``threatened'' by external and internal perception the discipline pretends the code monkey part isn't there, or re-frames everything as some architecture astronaut-ism, or ivory tower-ism by pretending it is almost pure math.

Dijkstra worked his ass off to make the ``programmer'' title fashionable, but some people have insecurities of being even close to the code like they are untrained labor or something. The most important books that define the field CONTAIN CODE NUFF SAID.

Therefore, Computer Science is 'computer-science not '(computer science).

>>25
You're stuck in old perspective of viewings such that mathematics should form the foundation of everything.

It's because you think nature operates on some different set of rules aside from computation at the most fundamental of levels. This is not true. See the Holographic Principle and the AdS/CFT Correspondence. Once you accept that the Universe is capable of at least Universal Quantum Computation, and thus simulating any other Universal Quantum or Turing equivalent machine (if the Universe wasn't, it would be impossible to build our modern Von Neumann/Register machines), everything else follows.

Mammalian brains are nothing more than emergent, vastly complex computational networks. Peano Arithmetic doesn't mean anything in the abstract sense without a human mind (or non-human mind with similar capabilities), or capable computational device to interpret and reason about it. That doesn't mean Peano Arithmetic is nonsense, it's just merely an illusion, a facet of the underlying computatiob of our own deliberative thought processes. That's why it appears that computation is equivalent to Peano Arithmetic, or rather, it should be stated that Peano Arithmetic is equivalent to computation.

I agree with the rest of what you say, the reason we can recognize and reason about things like infinity, non-computable reals, etc. is because we have constructed different rules and axioms (hint: algorithms) when thinking about them. There's a lot of implicit piece-wise logic going on. It's quite evident when you look at the source code for theorem provers and equation solvers, for example.

>>27
You're stuck in old perspective of viewings such that mathematics should form the foundation of everything.
In a way, but PA and computation are expressible in each other, thus I consider computation the absolute minimum (along with logic) of math that is likely 'true' (consistent, physically realizable, if not equivalent, if Physical Church Turing Thesis (PCCT) is true). I have no idea if non-computable math (uncountable ordinals, real numbers, ...) makes sense or is physically realizable.
In a way, I don't think our thinking is too different, so I'll just list my current positions:
- 90% confidence in PA being true, and thus computational processes operating on unbounded, but finite naturals make sense (an ultrafinitist will insist a bound exists, while I think the induction schema makes sense and while any machine can have bounds, there can always exist a machine with higher bounds than any you've previously considered (why am I even thinking about this? if PCCT is true, you have to consider a Computational Universe Hypothesis(CUH) which includes the set of all computational universes (similar to Tegmark's Mathematical Universe Hypothesis/Ultimate Ensemble, but restricted to discrete/computable math)).
- 30% confidence of infinitary set theories, hypercomputation making sense/being physically realiziable, which is to say that I don't think it is and I would be mildly surprised if it turns out it is the case (but it's impossible for us to ever tell apart a computational universe from a non-computational universe because we ourselves are quite finite and our substitution level is presumably quite high (that is, if you were to perform a functional replacement of one's own brain cells, you would become able a digital abstraction which would function more or less the same as our biological brain, to put it more simply, I conjecture that our brains do not exploit any hypercomputational processes (if our universe would have such properties(unlikely)) and thus such a substitution would work)). Penrose would assign a much higher probability to this - in a way, his hypothesis "solves" one problem by making it intractable (when considering antorphic reasoning within the CUH, there's the "White Rabbit" problem, or why our history appears so consistent; what is the probability that one would find oneselves experiencing this particular moment, in this particular universe? what are the totality of structures that support oneself and why is our past/feature so lawful?)
- If CUH is true, 35% confidence in the set of computational universes being finite, that is, while each universe can be finite, the set of all universes cannot, this is because I consider mathematical induction schema axiom valid (a ultrafinitist would assign a much higher confidence to this, they may also believe in a single universe, or merely refuse to think about whatever meta-rules the universe is based on).

s/feature/future/

>>26
Simple additive/subtractive arithmetic aside, Mathematics is an accident that occurred roughly around 3000 BCE when ancient Babylonian and Egyptian Kings and landlords hired a bunch of priests to develop a mechanism by which the boundaries of a plot of land could be precisely determined so as to remedy ownership disputes, even in the face of the seasonal floods that caused the landscape to change due to erosion; all the while pouring the foundation of the academic discipline from the seeds of religious superstition.

From then till the advent of the the Classical Greek period in 400 BCE, a total of some 2600 years, the field of Mathemetics remained a diverse hydra that belonged nowhere, yet had features ranging from elementary algebra to applied monkey measuring. When it was ``threatened'' by external and internal perception the discipline pretended the measure-monkey part wasn't there, or re-framed everything as some divine theism, or granite pyramid-ism by pretending it was the will of the gods.

Euclid worked his ass off to make the ``mathematician'' title fashionable, but still some people had insecurities of being even close to the formulae as if it would invoke the wrath of Hades himself! The most important scrolls and tablets that defined the field at the time CONTAINED FORMULAE NUFF SAID.

Eventually, after many further centuries of strife and struggle, most of humanity got over it. It was only then that the field, originally mistaken to be 'γεω-μετρία, but in reality `(γεω μετρία) (or `(geo metria), or `(Earth measurement)) evolved to take on the modern catch-all name 'mathematics.

Moral of the story: Humanity still needs to get over the insecurity of dealing with computation and recognize the field for what it truly is. This includes you.

>>26
>>27
>>28
>>30
you're very stupid

>>31
Going for the ad-hominem against multiple posters without even giving a valid argument against their posts.

>>31
math/physics/biology major detected!

>>32
Gratuitous verbal abuse or "name-calling" itself is not an ad hominem or a logical fallacy.

>>28
I see, so we're pretty much on the same page, just slightly differing yet mostly isomorphic viewpoints.

I think it will be interesting to see the look on the faces of those who are opposed to the idea that human brain are nothing more than computational machines in the next decade or so once we succeed at fully simulating a human brain.

I'm a little worried also about the ethical ramifications of doing this, I mean, if I were the simulated mind, I don't think I would fancy having my simulated environment changed and parts of mind altered (which might actually be very painful) to monitor the underlying results of doing so. But I suppose it's for the greater good of all of humanity.

Perhaps we should elect >>31 as the candidate to have his brain scanned so he can be tortured for eternity in a simulated hell.

>>33
oh look its this guy ... again

>>32
No one from [sppoiler]/praugue[/spoiler] understands debate logic and rule anyways so you are wating your "breath" as it were.

There are a lot of Master Debaters in there however...

>>35
(which might actually be very painful)
You probably won't remember it (as the final simulation is unlikely to have the temporary modifications that were used to tweak their models/implementation), but the painful experiences would exist, even if only for a limited amount of time and only to be forgotten afterwards.

There's actually quite a few other problems that might arise when we achieve substrate independence, both ethical and legal problems (how to handle multiplicity (forking instances of oneself), what about identity and legal ownership?, and trivially nasty stuff like experimenting on a SIM(substrate independent mind) without its consent). Even so, what we stand to gain by getting to SIM dwarfs what we stand to lose. Among the gains could be: increasing subjective experience speed by orders of magnitude given appropriately specialized hardware to implement a brain, efficiency gains/cost lowering (for supporting a life), multiplicity/parallelization (forking copies of oneself to do work much faster), after a while, it might even be possible to invent various forms of "telepathic" communication (not trivially accessible just by getting to SIM, but possible given enough work), various interesting modifications (think about adding extra sensory pathways, removing some useless biological functionalities that one does not want(now that they are no longer biological, controlling moods/emotions much more exactly than current rough psych medications, likely ability to fix various mental illnesses (especially those rooted in biology), VR environments much less restricted than real ones, likely the ability of realtime decoding of various mental processes (for example, recording one's own dreams or imagination, internal voice might be possible - they can already do some of this inexactly by only using fMRI and statistical methods, think what they could do if they had access to all the internal states of one's brain), ability to test the Computational Multiverse Hypothesis (this is potentially troublesome if true, but also the things one stands to gain from this are immense, I could elaborate what practical benefits this would have, but it would be too long to include in this small margin, instead I'll just recommend you read "Permutation City" for an example of how one could test this hypothesis if SIMs are possible), likely many others I'm overlooking right now.

Also partially relevant, to your idea/fears is this novel: http://sifter.org/~simon/AfterLife/

is computer science the newest science?

by calling it the "purest" science, are you >implying that all the other sciences (including the soft ones like biology and chemistry) are merely subset of computer science?

if so, what is computer science the subset of (aka, what will be the next ``science'')?

>>39
Computer Science Science, or CSS. So, web development.