Software and Mind: The Mechanistic Myth and Its Consequences

Software and Mind: The Mechanistic Myth and Its Consequences

Addressing general readers as well as software practitioners, Software and Mind discusses the fallacies of the mechanistic ideology and the degradation of minds caused by these fallacies.

Publication date: 01 Jan 2013

ISBN-10: 0986938904

ISBN-13: 9780986938900

Paperback: 944 pages

Views: 6,850

Type: N/A

Publisher: Andsor Books

License: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

Post time: 18 Apr 2016 12:00:00

Software and Mind: The Mechanistic Myth and Its Consequences

Software and Mind: The Mechanistic Myth and Its Consequences Addressing general readers as well as software practitioners, Software and Mind discusses the fallacies of the mechanistic ideology and the degradation of minds caused by these fallacies.
Tag(s): Hackers and Computer Philosophy
Publication date: 01 Jan 2013
ISBN-10: 0986938904
ISBN-13: 9780986938900
Paperback: 944 pages
Views: 6,850
Document Type: N/A
Publisher: Andsor Books
License: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
Post time: 18 Apr 2016 12:00:00
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From the Book Description:

Addressing general readers as well as software practitioners, Software and Mind discusses the fallacies of the mechanistic ideology and the degradation of minds caused by these fallacies. Mechanism holds that every aspect of the world can be represented as a simple hierarchical structure of entities. But, while useful in fields like mathematics and manufacturing, this idea is generally worthless, because most aspects of the world are too complex to be reduced to simple structures. Our software-related affairs, in particular, cannot be represented in this fashion. And yet, all programming theories and development systems, and all software applications, attempt to reduce real-world problems to neat hierarchical structures of data, operations, and features.

Using Karl Popper's famous principles of demarcation between science and pseudoscience, the book shows that the mechanistic ideology has turned most of our software-related activities into pseudoscientific pursuits. Using mechanism as warrant, the software elites are promoting invalid, even fraudulent, software notions. They force us to depend on generic, inferior systems, instead of allowing us to develop software skills and to create our own systems. Software mechanism emulates the methods of manufacturing, and thereby restricts us to high levels of abstraction and simple, isolated structures. The benefits of software, however, can be attained only if we start with low-level elements and learn to create complex, interacting structures.




About The Author(s)


Dr. Andrei Sorin has been programming for more than forty years. He has worked on diverse types of hardware, from 4-bit microprocessors to mainframes; and he has developed many types of software, from programming tools to business systems. His research interests include application development and maintenance concepts, data management principles, and the philosophy of software.

Andrei Sorin

Dr. Andrei Sorin has been programming for more than forty years. He has worked on diverse types of hardware, from 4-bit microprocessors to mainframes; and he has developed many types of software, from programming tools to business systems. His research interests include application development and maintenance concepts, data management principles, and the philosophy of software.


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