Re: Linux Kernel Security - Can it ever be 100%
On Sat, Dec 06, 2003 at 10:01:04AM -0800, Tom wrote:
> On Sat, Dec 06, 2003 at 10:09:29AM -0700, Paul E Condon wrote:
> >
> > The initial rant was about making computer software conform to a
> > specification.
>
> You're giving me too much credit. :-) I really was advocating something
> like Arthur Koestler suggested in "Ghost in the Machine" -- evolution
> does not always progress forward. Sometimes it takes a few steps
> backward and then takes a giant leap forward.
>
> I'm advocating something probably more radical than you comprehend.
> I was suggesting ditching all known computer designs and solving every
> solved problem again, because I think as a species we need to. There
> are some awfully muddle-headed design problems in Computer Science today
> (the terribly slow speed of memory WRT processor speed) which have us
> doing a strange kabuke dance. Chuck the baby out with the bathwater I
> say.
>
I heard somewhere: He who is ignorant of History is doomed to repeat
it. I've heard, attributed to Newton, "If I have seen further than
other men, it is because I have stood on the shoulders of giants."
Existing computer designs are built on ideas of mathematical logic and
mathematical rules of arithmetic. Are you proposing abandoning these?
If not, what is the stuff you keep, and how do you decide without
studying it? I think I am quite capable of understanding your
position: You are a debater, not a thinker; a sophist, not a
philosophist. But, where there is life there is hope. You may, I hope,
outgrow your current rhetorical position.
Concerning evolution, so far as I am aware, modern biologic thinking
does not make much distinction between forward and backward. Species
arise through mutation and fall into extinction via mechanisms not
well understood. Over the long run, there is an appearance of a
general movement toward greater complexity, but 'progress' is sort of
a dirty word, i.e. not used in polite company.
--
Paul E Condon
pecondon@peakpeak.com
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