https://playback.fm/born-in-city/akron-oh

The Most Famous Person Born in Akron, Ohio is Willard Van Orman Quine.

FAME METER (40/100)

------- what does he mean to the average person ?

or to someone who likes books, reading, ... ?

or to someone who 's interested in English- Usage ?

On 5/07/2022 2:35 a.m., henh...@gmail.com wrote:
>
> https://playback.fm/born-in-city/akron-oh
>
> The Most Famous Person Born in Akron, Ohio is Willard Van Orman Quine.
>
> FAME METER (40/100)
>
>
> ------- what does he mean to the average person ?
>
> or to someone who likes books, reading, ... ?
>
> or to someone who 's interested in English- Usage ?
>

Nothing.
He was a philosopher and logician.
To people interested in "confirmation holism and ontological relativity"
he was probably quite important.
He had quite a bit to say about language, so linguists were aware of
him. But about English- Usage? Nothing.
On the other hand...
A computer program whose output is its own source code is called a
"quine" after Quine. This usage was introduced by Douglas Hofstadter in
his 1979 book, Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid.
Quine is a recurring character in the webcomic "Existential Comics".
Quine was selected for inclusion in the Committee for Skeptical
Inquiry's "Pantheon of Skeptics", which celebrates contributors to the
cause of scientific skepticism.
Quine was mentioned in the Peacock series A.P. Bio.
(Thanks Wiki)

On Monday, July 4, 2022 at 2:48:29 PM UTC-7, benl...@ihug.co.nz wrote:
> On 5/07/2022 2:35 a.m., henh...@gmail.com wrote:
> >
> > https://playback.fm/born-in-city/akron-oh
> >
> > The Most Famous Person Born in Akron, Ohio is Willard Van Orman Quine.
> >
> > FAME METER (40/100)
> >
> >
> > ------- what does he mean to the average person ?
> >
> > or to someone who likes books, reading, ... ?
> >
> > or to someone who 's interested in English- Usage ?
> >
> Nothing.
> He was a philosopher and logician.
> To people interested in "confirmation holism and ontological relativity"
> he was probably quite important.
> He had quite a bit to say about language, so linguists were aware of
> him. But about English- Usage? Nothing.
> On the other hand...
> A computer program whose output is its own source code is called a
> "quine" after Quine. This usage was introduced by Douglas Hofstadter in
> his 1979 book, Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid.
> Quine is a recurring character in the webcomic "Existential Comics".
> Quine was selected for inclusion in the Committee for Skeptical
> Inquiry's "Pantheon of Skeptics", which celebrates contributors to the
> cause of scientific skepticism.
> Quine was mentioned in the Peacock series A.P. Bio.
> (Thanks Wiki)

https://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/29/arts/w-v-quine-philosopher-who-analyzed-language-and-reality-dies-at-92.html
>>> W. V. Quine, a logician and Harvard philosophy professor whose analysis of language and its relation to reality made him one of the most influential philosophers of the 20th century, died on Monday at a hospital in Boston, where he lived. He was 92.

----------- the average person may have never heard of him but

still Quine may have influenced the average person's interest in language
(e.g. AUE)
(e.g. how Janus-words are so popular and talked-about)

and what kind of humor is enjoyed by the masses ------- e.g. the TV show Big Bang Theory

https://xkcd.com/785/ ------- the 3rd panel is M.C. Quine

On 05/07/22 00:35, henh...@gmail.com wrote:
>
> https://playback.fm/born-in-city/akron-oh
>
> The Most Famous Person Born in Akron, Ohio is Willard Van Orman Quine.
>
> FAME METER (40/100)
>
>
> ------- what does he mean to the average person ?
>
> or to someone who likes books, reading, ... ?
>
> or to someone who 's interested in English- Usage ?

Quine and McCluskey were prominently mentioned in the "Computer
Engineering I" class that I taught for a number of years.

--
Peter Moylan Newcastle, NSW http://www.pmoylan.org

On Monday, July 4, 2022 at 8:37:46 PM UTC-7, Peter Moylan wrote:
> On 05/07/22 00:35, henh...@gmail.com wrote:
> >
> > https://playback.fm/born-in-city/akron-oh
> >
> > The Most Famous Person Born in Akron, Ohio is Willard Van Orman Quine.
> >
> > FAME METER (40/100)
> >
> >
> > ------- what does he mean to the average person ?
> >
> > or to someone who likes books, reading, ... ?
> >
> > or to someone who 's interested in English- Usage ?

> Quine and McCluskey were prominently mentioned in the "Computer
> Engineering I" class that I taught for a number of years.
>
> --
> Peter Moylan Newcastle, NSW http://www.pmoylan.org

(minimization of Boolean functions) Quine McCluskey minimization method, is a technique for reducing for minimizing the expression in their SOP (sum of product) or POS (product of sum) form. Also called a tabular method, this method has advantages over the K Map method, in case the number of input variables is large.
------------ i wonder what else Quine did that was technical.

that reminds me... that Chomsky and Quine and a dozen others
(into the 1950's, 1960's) did foundational work in
BOTH
philosophy (of language) AND math, CompSci

but such academic breadth has become much rarer now ?

On 05/07/22 15:33, henh...@gmail.com wrote:
> On Monday, July 4, 2022 at 8:37:46 PM UTC-7, Peter Moylan wrote:
>> On 05/07/22 00:35, henh...@gmail.com wrote:
>>>
>>> https://playback.fm/born-in-city/akron-oh
>>>
>>> The Most Famous Person Born in Akron, Ohio is Willard Van Orman Quine.
>>>
>>> FAME METER (40/100)
>>>
>>>
>>> ------- what does he mean to the average person ?
>>>
>>> or to someone who likes books, reading, ... ?
>>>
>>> or to someone who 's interested in English- Usage ?
>
>> Quine and McCluskey were prominently mentioned in the "Computer
>> Engineering I" class that I taught for a number of years.
>>
>> --
>> Peter Moylan Newcastle, NSW http://www.pmoylan.org
>
>
> (minimization of Boolean functions) Quine McCluskey minimization method, is a technique for reducing for minimizing the expression in their SOP (sum of product) or POS (product of sum) form. Also called a tabular method, this method has advantages over the K Map method, in case the number of input variables is large.
> ------------ i wonder what else Quine did that was technical.
>
>
>
> that reminds me... that Chomsky and Quine and a dozen others
> (into the 1950's, 1960's) did foundational work in
> BOTH
> philosophy (of language) AND math, CompSci
>
> but such academic breadth has become much rarer now ?

The overlap is understandable in the case of logic, which is inherently
a cross-disciplinary area. Note that Quine was clearly a philosopher,
and McCluskey was equally clearly an electrical engineer. It is
interesting that the laws of logic as studied by philosophers has such a
strong overlap with the Boolean algebra that is central to digital
circuit design, but in hindsight it is not surprising.

The other overlap you mention is because language is an important
concept in computer programming. One of the first CS subjects I ever
taught was on compiler design. (For those who don't know, a compiler
translates from a programming language to a more primitive language
called machine language.) To teach that stuff it is essential to start
with material on formal grammars and parsing. The BNF used by computer
science people is closely related to the notation used by Chomsky for
context-free grammars, and people on both sides of the divide were well
aware of that.

At a later stage I briefly taught a postgraduate subject on the
relationships between automata theory and formal languages. That gets a
little heavier, especially when dealing with the distinctions between
deterministic and non-deterministic automata. I doubt that the formal
language people ever went as far as dealing with things like the Halting
Problem, but they were probably aware of it.

--
Peter Moylan Newcastle, NSW http://www.pmoylan.org

On 5/07/2022 1:25 p.m., henh...@gmail.com wrote:
> On Monday, July 4, 2022 at 2:48:29 PM UTC-7, benl...@ihug.co.nz wrote:
>> On 5/07/2022 2:35 a.m., henh...@gmail.com wrote:
>>>
>>> https://playback.fm/born-in-city/akron-oh
>>>
>>> The Most Famous Person Born in Akron, Ohio is Willard Van Orman Quine.
>>>
>>> FAME METER (40/100)
>>>
>>>
>>> ------- what does he mean to the average person ?
>>>
>>> or to someone who likes books, reading, ... ?
>>>
>>> or to someone who 's interested in English- Usage ?
>>>
>> Nothing.
>> He was a philosopher and logician.
>> To people interested in "confirmation holism and ontological relativity"
>> he was probably quite important.
>> He had quite a bit to say about language, so linguists were aware of
>> him. But about English- Usage? Nothing.
>> On the other hand...
>> A computer program whose output is its own source code is called a
>> "quine" after Quine. This usage was introduced by Douglas Hofstadter in
>> his 1979 book, Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid.
>> Quine is a recurring character in the webcomic "Existential Comics".
>> Quine was selected for inclusion in the Committee for Skeptical
>> Inquiry's "Pantheon of Skeptics", which celebrates contributors to the
>> cause of scientific skepticism.
>> Quine was mentioned in the Peacock series A.P. Bio.
>> (Thanks Wiki)
>
>
>
> https://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/29/arts/w-v-quine-philosopher-who-analyzed-language-and-reality-dies-at-92.html
> >>> W. V. Quine, a logician and Harvard philosophy professor whose analysis of language and its relation to reality made him one of the most influential philosophers of the 20th century, died on Monday at a hospital in Boston, where he lived. He was 92.
>
>
> ----------- the average person may have never heard of him but
>
> still Quine may have influenced the average person's interest in language
> (e.g. AUE)
> (e.g. how Janus-words are so popular and talked-about)

I doubt it.

> and what kind of humor is enjoyed by the masses ------- e.g. the TV show Big Bang Theory
>
> https://xkcd.com/785/ ------- the 3rd panel is M.C. Quine
(That seems to be an allusion to the Hofstadter coinage mentioned above.)
>

You have a very strange concept of "the masses".

henh...@gmail.com wrote:

> On Monday, July 4, 2022 at 2:48:29 PM UTC-7, benl...@ihug.co.nz wrote:
>> On 5/07/2022 2:35 a.m., henh...@gmail.com wrote:
>> >
>> > https://playback.fm/born-in-city/akron-oh
>> >
>> > The Most Famous Person Born in Akron, Ohio is Willard Van Orman Quine.
>> >
>> > FAME METER (40/100)
>> >
>> >
>> > ------- what does he mean to the average person ?
>> >
>> > or to someone who likes books, reading, ... ?
>> >
>> > or to someone who 's interested in English- Usage ?
>> >

>> Nothing.
>> He was a philosopher and logician.
>> To people interested in "confirmation holism and ontological relativity"
>> he was probably quite important.
>> He had quite a bit to say about language, so linguists were aware of
>> him. But about English- Usage? Nothing.
>> On the other hand...
>> A computer program whose output is its own source code is called a
>> "quine" after Quine. This usage was introduced by Douglas Hofstadter in
>> his 1979 book, Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid.
>> Quine is a recurring character in the webcomic "Existential Comics".
>> Quine was selected for inclusion in the Committee for Skeptical
>> Inquiry's "Pantheon of Skeptics", which celebrates contributors to the
>> cause of scientific skepticism.
>> Quine was mentioned in the Peacock series A.P. Bio.
>> (Thanks Wiki)

> https://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/29/arts/w-v-quine-philosopher-who-analyzed-language-and-reality-dies-at-92.html
> >>> W. V. Quine, a logician and Harvard philosophy professor whose analysis of language and its relation to reality made him one of the most influential philosophers of the 20th century, died on Monday at a hospital in Boston, where he lived. He was 92.

> ----------- the average person may have never heard of him but

> still Quine may have influenced the average person's interest in language
> (e.g. AUE)
> (e.g. how Janus-words are so popular and talked-about)

> and what kind of humor is enjoyed by the masses ------- e.g. the TV show Big Bang Theory

> https://xkcd.com/785/ ------- the 3rd panel is M.C. Quine





https://xkcd.com/1306/

what does SIGIL mean?