Hi Alan!
Would you please expand on "too Platonic"?
By the time of Leibnitz very little original Platonism remained.
"Corporealism" is closer to the mark, I think.
The struggle between dualist Decartes (Plato) and Monist Spinoza (Aristotle)
put an end to seminal Platonism.
Just because Class Object is the highest  physical (technical) level of
abstraction. I don't see how it can be "too platonic". Plato was looking
further into transcendence: abstract objects of  mind. Yes, like Platos
horse(ness) they do exist! You need mind not eyes to see it.
Little is known about this work.

Plato, perhaps like yourself had a good reason for going public too soon.
Corporeal politics it's called.
When I see St80, I see The (this world)ly Aristotle, through and through,
his Physicus (open) and Metaphysicus (closed), his error prone Syllogism:
open wound inviting infection.
If you just fell for the Greek mistake, then no sweat, it can happen to
anybody.
Not Socrates.

By and large you got it right the first time. You are a rare breed, A genius
I think.
But, what about the poor mundane people  who can't convince a large
"corporeal" Intitution to resource a great Idea. And don't or can't afford
the time to play: need a computer to survive.

Sadly the original great idea is being literally hacked to death. The
feeding frenzy began the day that PARC made St80 available to the world and
S.J. I can hear the chomping from down under. S.J. is at least honest, or
opportune, enough to admit his mistake.
It does not need to be so.

To put it simply the error lies in over concentration on the "hypothetical"
IF then Else (minor and the consequent) part of Aristotles Syllogism.
"All the Kings horses and all the Kings men will never put it together
again".

More accurately it lies in the declarative "LET it be" (major) part of the
Syllogism. Kant deals with it pretty thoroughly.

If Plato had listened to Socrates instead of running West looking for his
"philospher King" and Aristotle has listened to Plato instead of running off
East looking for a young Kings son to manipulate from patriarchal into
industrial slavery(army), then the world might a have been a more peacefull
place.
For those who find Kant too difficult "sophies World" is a good place to
start.
Yours respectfully
Justin
PS
In 1992 I met a genius like you. He had solved the problem.
I was given the task of pulling it to pieces (which by the way I'm pretty
good at). Sadley I don't have his skills of putting things back together
again.
His name is Charles Richter, methodology is RIPOSE, toolset CASPER, and his
address attached. If only he had known Smalltalk or Prolog 20 years ago, he
would have more time on his hands now.  This is not a commercial for the
.COM side of town. It works that's all that matters to me.


 ----- Original Message -----
From: "Alan Kay" <Alan.Kay at squeakland.org>
To: <squeak-dev at lists.squeakfoundation.org>
Sent: Wednesday, October 10, 2001 10:25 PM
Subject: Re: A stupid newbie question


> Ken --
>
> Monads did have some influence on my thinking --  though it's pretty
> clear that Squeak is quite Platonic in its structure (too Platonic in
> my opinion).
>
> Cheers,
>
> Alan
>
> -----------
>
> At 7:37 PM -0700 10/9/01, Ken Kahn wrote:
> >Justin Walsh wrote:
> >>
> >>  I tend to want to agree with you: kill off Kens analogy but, there
must
> >be
> >>  something significant in that an ordinary, commonse person like Ken
would
> >>  use (imply) such analogies: domination and Darwinian survival of the
> >>  fittest, assumptions like mammaliam superiority over dinosaurs,
> >development
> >>  etc (when dinosaurs had attained intelligence and flight). Perhaps
I've
> >>  missed the irony?
> >>  I don't like the idea of Squeak becoming merely a popular rabies
infected
> >>  rodent.
> >>  Anyway if there has to be a battle at all, I prefer it be in the realm
of
> >>  mere abstract ideas and computer simulation than in concrete.
Tragicaly
> >it
> >>  doesn't end there.
> >>
> >
> >I used to believe that programming languages could compete and succeed in
> >the realm of abstract ideas. I've seen too many good languages die and
too
> >many bad languages succeed to maintain that belief. Economics, social,
> >psychological, and ecological factors, and marketing seem to matter more.
> >
> >>  This extract was published in 1781. It influenced Dewey and Piaget who
in
> >>  turn influenced Alan Kay.
> >>  Unfortunately very few have properly studied him or even Alan Kay for
that
> >>  matter.
> >>
> >I read Kant's Critique of Pure Reason about 25 years ago and don't see
the
> >relevance. Please elaborate.
> >
> >On the topic of pre-computational philosophers, Liebnitz's monads seem
have
> >some connection with object-oriented programming.
> >
> >Best,
> >
> >-ken kahn ( www.toontalk.com )
>
>
> --
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: Critique of Pure Reason Norman Kemp Smith.url
Type: application/octet-stream
Size: 152 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/pipermail/squeak-dev/attachments/20011011/43beeecf/CritiqueofPureReasonNormanKempSmith.obj
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: Sophies World.url
Type: application/octet-stream
Size: 160 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/pipermail/squeak-dev/attachments/20011011/43beeecf/SophiesWorld.obj
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: Six Thinking Hats (Technique).url
Type: application/octet-stream
Size: 212 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/pipermail/squeak-dev/attachments/20011011/43beeecf/SixThinkingHatsTechnique.obj