csc@watmath.waterloo.edu (Ed Bourne) (03/08/91)
These are the briefs for the talks by John McCarthy on Monday
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NETWORK PUBLICATION AND FREE EXPRESSION
by John McCarthy, Stanford University
Abstract: A superior form of publication is developing that will
gradually supplant print media. Usenet newsgroups are a preliminary
form. The advantages are greater freedom of publication, greater
immediacy and reduced costs. Since anyone can "publish" a comment on
anything and anyone can look up the comments, controversial statements
have to be written so as to withstand criticism. There are already
more than 1,500 newsgroups including users of certain computers and
software, scientific topics like geology, pornography and discussion
of current affairs like the war in the Gulf. The field needs to find
a way of supporting professional editors and authors and to
universalize availability by merging the networks.
So far, establishment notice of network publication has only taken the
form of feeble and ignorant attempts at censorship. We'll tell about
manifestations of this at Stanford, U. Waterloo and in Norway. The
Stanford situation was resolved correctly by applying the same
principles of freedom of speech and universality of libraries to
network publication that apply to print publication.
Elephant 2000: A Programming Language Based on Speech Acts (preliminary)
Abstract: Elephant 2000 is a vehicle for some ideas about
programming language features.
1. Input and output are in an I-O language whose sentences are
meaningful speech acts approximately in the sense of philosophers
and linguists. These include questions, answers, offers,
acceptances, declinations, requests, permissions and promises.
2. The correctness of programs is partially defined in terms of
proper performance of the speech acts. Answers should be
truthful, and promises should be kept. Sentences of logic
expressing these forms of correctness can be generated
automatically from the form of the program.
3. Elephant source programs may not need data structures, because
they can refer directly to the past. Thus a program can say that
an airline passenger has a reservation if he has made one and
hasn't cancelled it.
4. Elephant programs themselves are represented as sentences of
logic. Their properties follow from this representation without
an intervening theory of programming or anything like Hoare
axioms.
5. Programs that interact non-trivially with the outside
world can have both {\it illocutionary} and {\it perlocutionary}
specifications, i.e. specifications relating inputs and outputs
and specifications concerning what they accomplish in the world.
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ed bournekim@watnow.waterloo.edu (T. Kim Nguyen) (03/08/91)
Since I can't attend the McCarthy talks I was wondering if someone would be interested in videotaping or at least audio taping him for posterity (and my subsequent listening/watching pleasure)... PLEASE!? Puh-leeeeez!?? -- T. Kim Nguyen kim@watnow.waterloo PAMI Group ---- Systems Design Engineering