Philosophy and Lisp
Programming language wars don’t have to be religious based wars. Programming languages should be rooted in philosophy. The more a programming language is rooted in sound philosophy the more value it has.
Over the years, many of the posts on this blog have been regarding some programming language, algorithm or technology. Some posts have highlighted why Lisp is the most powerful and useful programming language paradigm available to man at this point in the history of computer science.
Explicitly pointing out examples of Lisp code is always insightful and important (at least to those open to evidence and reason).
Still there are people who cannot(or will not?) grasp just why Lisp is, has been(for the past half-century) and will be so important to the development and growth of computer science. For example, some people, in spite of having read Paul Graham’s clear essays on Lisp (which make it really easy to grasp why Lisp is important), still often seem to parrot incoherent illogical arguments and myths against Lisp.
My goal with many of the blog posts here have been my attempt to bring some understanding to folks interested in Lisp and computer science related topics that are based on integrity and therefore are of real value to those that pursue them.
Within computer science, academia and industry there are too many disparate choices presented to the various stake holders from the cubicle dwellers all the way up to the CEOs and Professors. The elephant in the room with all these choices(and what most of them have in common) is that they are lacking in integrity and value. Profit, control, ignorance, altruism, stupidity, inexperience, grant money, incapability, kick backs, bonuses, salaries, titles, fear and many other reasons explain why integrity and value are lacking.
The same has happened with all of the other sciences too and from a philosophical stand-point the causes are very much similar.
At this point some may ask why philosophy is even important to computer science and let alone a programming language called Lisp. The kind of person that usually asks this question is usually the kind of person that has never understood why philosophy itself is so important. Well, just how important is philosophy ? The short answer is that, after life itself, philosophy is the second most important thing to a human being.
It’s critical that after stating the high importance of philosophy that I quickly define what I mean by Philosopy. By philosophy I mean the study of the fundamental nature of knowledge, reality and existence using the tools of observation, evidence, empiricism, logic and reason. This is the classical philosophy of Aristotle and Socrates which is rational absolutism. It is NOT the charlatan ‘philosophy’ of mysticism, positivism, relativism, perspectivism, nihilism and altruism of Plato, Marx, Imannuel Kant, Kierkegaard, Hegel and so many others whose theories have tragically played out in human history and some of which unfortunately are still continually adhered to right up until now. They are more correctly called for what they are : ideologies or religions. Religion is irrational absolutism. The philosophy I am talking about is made distinct in that it is rational absolutism. It is therefore not for bar-room outbursts or musings between tenured professors in dusty old buildings. It is not the salesy popular positive-thinking conventions, the caffeine-overdose incoherent babbling at church or AA gatherings. It is not the foggy positive upbeat tangled ramblings of relativism at burning man. It is a study that has practical applications right from the start.
Without philosophy you would not be reading this blog post. You would not have a computer, there would be no internet. Society would not have produced books, hygiene would not exist, the enlightenment would never have happened. Mathematics and the sciences would never have advanced to where they are today and we would not be benefiting from them if it weren’t for philosophy. From the dysfunctional quirks to the atrocities perpetuated by conflict around this planet, which we all witness each day in society, the root cause is the problem of ideologies and religions usurping the rightful place of philosophy. Philosophy is a matter of life and death. Philosophy is as critical to ethics and morality as it is to mathematics and science. This has been conclusively proved from first principles and so I will not do it here. The human race has advanced in technology further than anyone could have imagined and yet we still resort to coercion and violence at all levels of society. This is because we have not based our ethics and morality on philosophy. Instead we have given these responsibilities of moral and ethical definition to authority figures : the government, industry, academia, the church and well-intentioned but dishonest and flawed parental coercive attempts that do incalculable damage to children and then play out in our societies through their adult life in crime and violence or if we’re lucky it’s merely benign stupidty and arrested personal development.
Well, that’s quite the detour but it’s important to highlight the importance of Philosophy.
Here I put forward that Lisp’s outstanding importance to computer science compared with other programming languages is based on it’s solid philosophical foundation. This is quite simple to prove and I will do so in a few paragraphs.
Lisp is based on Lambda Calculus. Lambda Calculus is a formal system for function definition, function application and recursion. Lisp’s contribution to programming language theory is unfortunately, for the most part, unrecognized by the majority of programmers today. For example: Lisp and typed lambda calculii serve as the foundation for modern type systems. On the other end there is no equivalent of Lisp’s concept of macros that exists in any other programming language even up until today. If there were then that programming language would be a Lisp implementation.
Let’s look further down at Lisp. I stated that Lisp is based on the formal system of lambda calculus. The formal system of lambda calculus is based on functions, logic and predicates, recursion and a number of other important concepts that are fundamental concepts in mathematics. It would follow that the greater the fidelity a programming language has to these mathematical concepts and the more it builds upon them then the more powerful the programming language will be. History provides the evidence in that there is no other programming language that has done this better than Lisp.
We could go even deeper and ask why these fundamental mathematical concepts are so crucial. The answer will then take us into philosophy upon which mathematics is based upon. Sound philosophy demanded that these mathematical concepts be tested by evidence, logic and rigor from some very basic premises that were built up to more complex and powerful structures of thought which were proved to be true. Metaphorically: mathematics and the sciences are trees which can only grow in the soil of philosophy. The reasons are plain as to why religion, superstition and mysticism are not responsible for putting man on the moon or leading to the discovery of DNA.
The scientific/mathematical side of Lisp is just half of the explanation though. The other half of Lisp is the ethical and moral side. Stay with me. Most programmers hardly ever associate a programming language with ethics and morality but they do play a role in the design and use of a language. This is because human beings must use these programming languages. They must fill their minds with the concepts and limitations that these programming languages require for their use and application. When a language designer decrees(when he should instead be deducting) that some of the features that were available to him in the design are too powerful for the users of his language then he is in the realm of morality and ethics and as such is subject to valid moral and ethical scrutiny, which are in turn based on rational and evidence based philopsophy. You may be a computer scientist but you are still to be held morally and ethically responsible for your creation and what it subjects the minds of your users to. On a daily basis and for the masses of programmers, their language is unfortunately seen as a religious preference. It is an ideology forced upon them by their indoctrination from their peer group in academia or industry. Many are not even aware that their every day programming language even matters. Most just don’t even care. They are unaware of how the languages that they use effects their ability to think and solve problems.
Lisp’s design was such that it considered the user of the language equally important as the designer of the language. This shows in that Lisp has compile time and run time macros which effectively allow the user to change the language itself at it’s most basic level if they so desire. Contrast this design with the dictatorial designs of popular languages in industry. On the other hand Common Lisp’s design takes the freedom of the user even more seriously being a multi-paradigm Lisp.
In conclusion I don’t want to suggest that everyone should be using Lisp against their will. That would run counter to the philosophy of Lisp. Lisp is not a religion in the way other programming languages are seen. The myth of the newbie-eating Lisp hacker is just that, a myth. Lisp is embraced by the minority just as the sciences are. It has been shown that Lisp is based on sound philosophical principles and that these have resulted in it being the most successful(not popular) programming language in history. It’s contribution to programming language theory is remarkable. It has also imparted enjoyment, programming power and cognitive freedom to it’s users like no other programming language has.
Keep Lisping !