On Monday 21 May 2007 6:27 pm, Alan Kay wrote:
> .. This was what got me
> thinking that an operating system is just a stupid programming system
I concur. The overuse (and abuse) of "system" started in the sixties, I 
believe. I think the term it replaced, 'control program', was more accurate 
about what it was really meant for - controlling devices. Programming in the 
sense of digital expression of mathematics is so different.

> (But what do you think Hofstadter and Penrose would contribute here
> 40 years after the fact?)
If Squeak continues to grow, evolve, mutate, replicate and communicate like an 
organism, say over the next one hundred years,  "it" would be considered 
intelligent, Would it also also have a 'self'? Both Penrose (inEmperor's New 
Mind, Shadow of the Mind) and Hofstadter (Selfish Genes in Godel Escher ..., 
Mind's I) had exposited on such themes. I just wondered how they would have 
reacted to something like Squeak/Croquet.  Between the extremes of self as a 
special entity (consciousness) and as a physical entity (Minsky's "computers 
made of meat"), is there an intermediate entity of living, changing symbols 
and patterns of pure bits? Is there a third entity in the mind-body problem?

But then, the discussion could go way off topic :-),
Subbu