Tuesday, April 16, 2013

The Codifist Manifesto





The universe is made of code.





There is nothing outside the code


All that is tangibly written today is typed via computer/electronic QWERTY keyboards.

All writing is coding — e.g., XML+HTML+CSS+JS — for the electrates.

Monkeys typing LaTeX/Mathematics could make all Tegmark's computable universes.

There is nothing outside the code.

Code is all that exists.


Codifism


This is the philosophy of codifism: Codes are the substrates of existence. What is thought, said, written, created is based on a code. All that is is based on a code. Codifism comes from digilectical materialism.

Codifism emerges from semiotics and electracy, pragmatists like Charles Sanders Peirce, John Dewey, and Richard Rorty, programmers like Alan Turing, Donald Knuth, and Tim Berners-Lee.

Codifists can be programmers, philosophers, poets, mathematicians, semioticians, ...

What can be expressed at all is expressed in the language of a code (a.k.a. a coding language).

Coding languages are everywhere: HTML, CS, JS, SVG, LaTeX:Math, XML, DNA, Twitlish, ...

Facts are just expressions in the language of a code that are useful.

All that is can be expressed in a coding language.

There are many codes, natural and invented. No one code rules.

Humans are natural codifiers. Codifists strive to codify.

Codify or die.


Codifism can be seen as a digital philosophy.


...

Digilectical materialism


Digilectical materialism is the theoretical basis for codifism.

All codes have a language (the coding language) consisting of a finite alphabet and rules for forming syntactical units. Digilectical materialism is the theory that codes underlay all that exists. Code theorists discover these codes.

To posit the world is made of coditrons and codes is no more strange than to posit it is made of particles and fields or strings and branes.


coder, codifier, codist, code theorist, codifist


coder - A writer and tester of codes (e.g., a computer programmer).

codifier - An inventor of codes.

codist - A codifier.

code theorist - Someone who discovers and studies codes; a digilectical materialist; an armchair codifist.

codifist - A supporter and promoter of codifism.


Digilectics


Digilectics is the set of principles and practices of codifism and digilectical materialism.

The world is observed as phenomena and coded in theories which model the phenomena:

P: P1|P2|P3| ... levels of phenomena (read by measuring devices)
T: T1|T2|T3| ... levels of theories (written in coding languages)

The lowest level could include, for example, the measurements made in the Large Hadron Collider (in P1) and the Standard Model (in T1). Higher levels could include chemistry, biology, psychology, politics, ...

Attention is paid to correlations (P), consistencies (T), and agreements (T with P).


Codes vs. code


      Re: codifism


1. There are codes.

2. Associated with each code there is a coding language.

3. A "sentence" (document, program file, ...) in a coding language is called code (used as a mass noun).


Example:

   (1) chemistry → (2) CML <xml-cml.org> → (3) a CML document


Tractatus Logico-Codifist


The world is all that is the case.

The world is the totality of codes, not of things.

The world is determined by codes, and by their being all the codes.

For the totality of working code determines what is the case, and also whatever is not the case.

The codes in logical space run the world.

The world divides into codes.




(via Wittgenstein)


Brain codes


The human brain is a protoplasmic machine that generates new codes which it then uses to make programs to be run on itself.

Human brains biologically evolved to be able to generate new codes and therefore new culture.


Intelligence is the faculty of making artificial objects, especially tools to make tools.
~ Henri Bergson (@philo_quotes)



The universe is a machine running codes. Living things are machines running codes. We can create new codes.

read more ...


Polycodifism


There may not be a single primal code ("Theory Of Everything"), but a multiplicity of codes born in The Big Bang.


Archi-coding


One of the core ideas from Jacques Derrida is archi-writing: Regarding the relationship between speech and writing, Western philosophy has in some sense 'dissed' writing as a pale form of speech. It has been a mistake to see writing as just an artifact of speech. Archi-writing refers to "a kind of writing that precedes both speech and writing."

This may not be very clear (or some may think it's not very right), but there is an analogue that is more clear: The relationship between math and code.

By "math" I mean the writing of mathematics as seen in articles from arXiv, or in mathematical texts in general. A popular, expressive language for this math is \(\LaTeX\) math mode. While this math appears in an article, code (written in a programming language) that is associated with the math (e.g., numerical simulation) is generally relegated to final sections of the article, or is merely referenced. The idea that "math precedes code" is a mistake, just as "speech precedes writing" is a mistake.

Archi-coding would be a kind of coding that precedes both math and code.


-isms


Deleuzism: Philosophy is the production of concepts.
Ironism:     Philosophy is the production of vocabularies.
Codifism:   Philosophy is the production of codes.


Codes and Forms


Are codes (from Codifism) like Forms (from Platonism)?

I argue no. Forms are nonmaterial abstractions outside nature, whereas codes are just as material as particles, fields, spacetimes, strings or whatever is currently in the world of physics. Codes are not final idealizations, there may be many competing codes*, and codes may not be perfections.

So the "Theory of Codes" is not like the "Theory of Forms": Codifism is not Platonism.


* This Compulinguistic Universe Hypothesis would be a materialist version of the Mathematical Universe Hypothesis. (See also The Computable Universe Hypothesis.)


The compulinguistic universe hypothesis


The compulinguistic universe hypothesis (CLUH):

All physical reality is the output of code "written" in a coding language.

compulinguistic - Of or relating to computer coding languages.



CLUH can be seen as a concrete version of MUH and CUH:

The mathematical universe hypothesis (arxiv.org/abs/0704.0646 [1]):
All physical reality is a mathematical structure.
The computable universe hypothesis (arxiv.org/abs/1003.5831 [2]):
All the laws of physics are computable.
(Note: [1] has this definition for a computable universe hypothesis: The mathematical structure that is our external physical reality is defined by computable functions.)

An alternative name for CLUH could be PUH: the Programmable Universe Hypothesis (but compulinguistic seems to be a more accurate descriptor).



Code forth


Codes are being created and discovered every day. Code forth and make or find your own.


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