This is an archive of past discussions about Carl Hewitt. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.
Not done I don't see how this is "inappropriate" or "disrespectful" - and we don't seem to have any other copyright-free photos. Arjayay (talk) 06:59, 16 May 2014 (UTC)
Not done: There are no other copyright free images to replace the present image of the subject. If you have some better copyright free images of Hewitt, please upload them on Commons and re-open the request. Thank you! Anupmehra -Let's talk!06:19, 18 May 2014 (UTC)
Please restore section on "Inconsistency Robustness"
Latest comment: 10 years ago20 comments13 people in discussion
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Hewitt is a founder of the field of Inconsistency Robustness, which he defined to be "information system performance in the face of continually pervasive inconsistencies---a shift from the previously dominant paradigms of inconsistency denial and inconsistency elimination attempting to sweep them under the rug" [3]. Currently he is Board Chair of the International Society of Inconsistency Robustness[4], past Program Chair of Inconsistency Robustness 2011, and current Program Chair of Inconsistency Robustness 2014[5].
Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format. — {{U|Technical 13}}(t • e • c)18:14, 18 May 2014 (UTC)
I'm not sure why this was a problem, but I've restored the content and updated some of the references - it is a significant part of his research, so I'm very happy to see it included. Plus it is an exciting field in its own right. :) - Bilby (talk) 03:39, 21 May 2014 (UTC)
Currently, Professor Hewitt is most famous for his work on the Actor Model and Inconsistency robustness.
The board at iRobust is very prestigious.
64.134.19.160 (talk) 02:03, 27 May 2014 (UTC)
Not done: as you have not requested a specific change. If you want to suggest a change, please request this in the form "Please replace XXX with YYY" or "Please add ZZZ between PPP and QQQ". Please also cite INDEPENDENTRELIABLESOURCES to back up your request, as clearly this article has had issues over the use of non-independant sources in the past. - Arjayay (talk) 08:06, 27 May 2014 (UTC)
@64.134.221.195: Firstly, please calm down, as you seem upset. As Arjayay has requested you to do, please provide independentreliable sources, as the current reference appears to be first party. There's no reason to be upset; Bilby has already supported your change - it's just that additional verifiability of the information being added is required to meet Wikipedia standards. No one is saying he's not important, just back it up with reliable sources. Thanks. --JustBerry (talk) 22:53, 27 May 2014 (UTC)
Why was the above suggestion deleted? As requested, the person provided links to the field of Inconsistency Robustness including the scientific society and conferences with highly prominent scientific leaders. Just because Professor Hewitt is involved doesn't mean that they are not reputable.167.220.25.17 (talk) 18:59, 29 May 2014 (UTC)
Not done: We can only fulfill an edit request when there is no lack of consensus and there are enough details and reliable sources to support the request and the request doesn't obviously violate any Wikipedia policies. The fact that the original request was to restore something implies there was a lack of consensus about having that content in the article. As soon as the request was satisfied by Bilby, it was reverted by Arthur Rubin, which again says there is a lack of consensus here. Please try to form a consensus before reactivating the template. Thanks, Older and ... well older (talk) 05:30, 30 May 2014 (UTC)
OK, let's discuss it. I heard that Arthur Rubin has a personal thing against Professor Hewitt because of previous interactions between the two. So maybe Rubin should recuse himself because of some Wikipedia policy? 76.14.40.188 (talk)
Not done "I heard that .. " is not what we would consider a reliable source. Please stop reactivating the ESP request until you have reached consensus. Arjayay (talk) 15:18, 30 May 2014 (UTC)
If Rubin recuses himself (as seems proper), does that establish consensus?
According to the links listed above, the Inconsistency Robustness community is incredibly prestigious. 76.14.40.188 (talk) 15:45, 30 May 2014 (UTC)
I'd guess many of the opposes come from people with no idea of who Professor Hewitt is. I certainly don't, nor do I care all that much. Thanks for your interest in developing the English Wikipedia! — {{U|Technical 13}}(e • t • c)17:46, 30 May 2014 (UTC)
If anything, the problem is due to Professor Hewitt and his students dislike for me and my attempts to maintain Wikipedia standards. I see no reason to recuse unless Professor Hewitt agrees to the conditions set for his return to editing, and to inform those editing on his behalf to agree to the conditions. — Arthur Rubin(talk)22:20, 30 May 2014 (UTC)
What is the dispute? iRobust is a perfectly respectable independent scientific society with a highly prestigious board.
50.131.224.36 (talk) 21:04, 10 June 2014 (UTC)
Why do Wikipedia internal conflicts matter so much?
The suggested change to restore the section would improve the article and consequently improve Wikipedia.
What is the substantive problem? 167.220.25.17 (talk) 22:56, 30 May 2014 (UTC)
Seriously, please stop activating that template. There is no consensus for this change. Without consensus, the volunteers servicing the template cannot implement the requested change. Turning the template back on repeatedly is merely disruptive. Follow the dispute resolution path to settle this dispute. Older and ... well older (talk) 01:04, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
Please restore Professor Hewitt's graduate students to infobox
Latest comment: 10 years ago8 comments6 people in discussion
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Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format. — {{U|Technical 13}}(t • e • c)18:14, 18 May 2014 (UTC)
The list is currently in the body of the article, so I don't have any major problem with adding them to the infobox. However, I'm not sure that it is best to have them in both places. Did you wish to include them in both? - Bilby (talk) 03:45, 21 May 2014 (UTC)
Latest comment: 10 years ago4 comments4 people in discussion
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You have been playing games with the anons above because you know the change that that the change that that they have been requesting is exactly the one in the following diff: requested changes
Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format. — {{U|Technical 13}}(t • e • c)12:20, 19 May 2014 (UTC)
Correct. It wasn't an edit-protected request, it was a request to nullify the previous edit-protected requests as being made by a banned editor. I've reverted the suggested changes so far made by Bilby; unless independent sources can be provided for the value of "inconsistency robustness", it doesn't deserve a paragraph here. — Arthur Rubin(talk)10:18, 22 May 2014 (UTC)s
It's interesting that Arthur Rubin considers himself to be an expert on [6] Inconsistency Robustness.
Professor Hewitt is one of the world's foremost mathematicians. In his dissertation, together with Mike Paterson, he proved that recursion is more powerful than iteration. Most famously, he proved that the current understanding of Gödel's second incompleteness result is inaccurate [7]. Like many mathematicians today, he often publishes in arXiv. [8].
If Wikipedia did not have such an intense grudge against Professor Hewitt, this information would appear in his Wikipedia article.
I agree. Furthermore, Wikipedia has figured out another way to insult Professor Hewitt by listing him in Category:Unknown-importance biography (science and academia) articles!
107.193.184.20 (talk) 17:30, 3 July 2014 (UTC)
"Dissertations" are not "with" someone else. The first IP's phrasing is questionable, at best. (For what's it worth, my dissertation was in generalized recursion theory and universal algebra. As for "the current understanding of Gödel's second incompleteness" theorem, there is no evidence he has done anything but redefined terms used in the theorem.
Most reputable mathematicians rarely post in arXiv.
It's disputed whether "Inconsistency Robustness" is a field of mathematics; if it is, he is a mathematician. (I would put it in "philosophical logic", rather than "mathematical logic".)
That being said, he's of "unknown importance" only because no one has entered the "s&a-priority" field in{{WikiProject Biography}}. I'll take care of that.
The result that recursion is more powerful than iteration was included in Professor Hewitt's dissertation with Paterson on the thesis committee. The result was published in their famous joint paper "Comparative Schematology."
Some famous mathematical theorems are published *only* in arXiv. Increasingly, prominent mathematical results are published in arXiv to establish a priority date
Obviously, you are unaware that Inconsistency Robustness [9] is a field of research that includes mathematics as just a part. As a mathematician, Professor Hewitt specializes in the Foundations of Computer Science.
The short form is that Professor Hewitt has *refuted* Gödel's second incompleteness result. However, it is possible to quibble. Over the years, Gödel's position waffled on the applicability of his result as follows: 1) Principia Mathematica as the foundation of mathematics provided that it is consistent, 2) Every consistent formal system containing first-order Peano Axioms 3) In opposition to Wittgenstein, just the system of first-order Peano axioms .
But the common understanding that Gödel proved that "mathematics cannot prove its own consistency" is inaccurate. In fact, mathematics proves its own consistency by a very simple proof published by Professor Hewitt.[10]50.131.244.2 (talk) 23:46, 3 July 2014 (UTC)
By the way, would you stop linking to irobust.org and ir14.org, which never support what you are saying. Even if Inconsistency Robustness "contains" mathematics and Hewitt is an expert, it would not necessarily mean that Hewitt is an expert in mathematics. I see we disagree about arXiv; in most cases, a "priority date" is not really of value, even to administrators. If someone wants to get his/her proofs out before publication, arXiv is useful, but most serious mathematicians would not use it until checked for accuracy, which normally requires peer-review. I would like to see "Comparative Schematology", but it seems not to be in even my local university libraries. It seems obviously false, but I have asserted a similar result for the use of "goto" vs. structured programming; that a program with goto's can be simulated by a structured program, but the program length is exponential in the number of "goto"s. But I digress. I also would like to see Hewitt's proof that mathematics "proves" its own consistency; I'm pretty sure he has redefined "proof" or "consistency", but it's possible the details would be useful.
I googled "Comparative Schematology" and immediately found the article at the top published by ACM.[11]
Probably the reason that people referred to [12] is that this is the location of the refereed article. (All the experts are on the program committee.)
Some very important mathematical theorems are published only on arXiv. e.g., [13] Priority is extremely important. That is why the Princeton people published their new homotopy type theory results in arXiv. Tree-killing journals are too slow! As for reliability, experts don't rely on the dubious blessing of some tree-killing journal. However, journals are still of some importance in tenure and promotion cases.
The folks at Stanford have leaped so far ahead of the rest of us that we are secretly jealous and struggling to catch up. Professor Hewitt is probably the top mathematician in his field.50.242.100.195 (talk) 15:09, 4 July 2014 (UTC)
Would someone other than Hewitt and his students please comment here? I still see no basis for the assertion that Hewitt is a mathematician. His thesis is clearly in computer science, rather than recursion theory. I could be wrong, but his thesis is not available online.
"Comparative Schematology" is a field of (some subject); there are so many papers with that title that it is difficult to be sure which is which. The one by Hewitt and Paterson is not available online.
Priority is extremely unimportant, at least in the fields of mathematics I am familiar with and to the math departments I am familiar with. Perhaps it matters in Hewitt's field—which, logically is therefore not mathematics. — Arthur Rubin(talk)07:11, 5 July 2014 (UTC)is
This is hilarious! I wonder who the knowledgeable anon is up in Fenton? But, hey, I bet the Stanford people are appreciative of the complement!
Meanwhile, Arthur Rubin is perpetually challenged finding things online ;-) You can easily find the following:
Comparative Schematology
Author: Paterson, Michael S.; Hewitt, Carl E.
Citable URI: http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/5851
Date Issued: 1970-11-01
Abstract:
While we may have the intuitive idea of one programming language having greater power than another, or of some subset of a language being an adequate 'core' for that language, we find when we try to formalize this notion that there is a serious theoretical difficulty. This lies in the fact that even quite rudimentary languages are nevertheless 'universal' in the following sense. If the language allows us to program with simple arithmetic or list-processing functions then any effective control structure can be simulated, traditionally by encoding a Turing machine computation in some way. In particular, a simple language with some basic arithmetic can express programs for any partial recursive function. Such an encoding is usually quite unnatural and impossibly inefficient. Thus, in order to carry on a practical study of the comparative power of different languages we are led to banish explicit functions and deal instead with abstract, uninterpreted programs or schemas. What follows is a brief report on some preliminary exploration in this area.
Let me rephrase that. The 441-page paper is not available online. The 8-page paper linked to above is not available for free online, and it appears not to be close enough to a field I've worked it to justify paying the $15. Hewitt could send me a copy, as it appears he has found my E-mail address. (If not, any of you with a real editor account could send me his E-mail address.) — Arthur Rubin(talk)16:54, 5 July 2014 (UTC)
(Reply to interpolated comment by 64.134.237.58.) So my search skills are not the best. That is an interesting paper, on the border between "theoretical computer science" and "recursion theory" (part of mathematical logic). It's possible that if the "basic functions and predicates" in the schema were replaced by oracular operations then P and R might be considered legitimate concepts in recursion theory, and S might be a concept in generalized recursion theory. The authors appear to go to great effort to avoid the well-known "oracle" concept, though. — Arthur Rubin(talk)01:05, 8 July 2014 (UTC)
Recursion theory oracles are irrelevant to the Hewitt and Paterson article. Uninterpreted procedures are closer to uninterpreted predicates in logic. 50.242.100.195 (talk) 01:00, 9 July 2014 (UTC)
Nonsense. Thank you for demonstrating that Hewitt is not a mathematician, or at least has no idea of the basics of recursion theory. From the point of view of programs, machines, or schema, there is absolutely no difference between an oracle and an uninterpreted predicate. (There is a difference in aspect, but not really in kind; Hewitt is looking whether two programs have the same result for all instantiations of the oracles, while more "traditional" recursion theory asks what can be computed from a particular instantiation of the oracles.) And the difference between "iteration" and "recursion" depends strongly on the particular abstract computing model. Even with that model, with "push" and "pop" operations, there may very well be no difference, and with the appropriate pairing representation, "push" (S1 ← (X1, S1) ) and "pop" (X1 ← first(S1) , S1 ← second(S1)) are simple operations. — Arthur Rubin(talk)06:47, 9 July 2014 (UTC)
Why does Wikipedia allow Arthur Rubin to defame Professor Hewitt with disinformation? For example, Professor Hewitt studied recursion theory with Hartley Rogers while doing his Ph.D. in mathematics at MIT. 107.193.184.20 (talk) 01:02, 10 July 2014 (UTC)
Unfortunately, many old-time recursion theorists like Arther Rubin do not understand abstraction in Computer Science. Of course, it is recursion theorems about oracles that are irrelevant to the Hewitt and Paterson article. From the viewpoint of modern Computer Science (based on many-core architecture), Rubin's "push/pop" model is a clumsy, non-abstract, uninteresting model of computation. Rubin seems to have missed the whole point of why the Hewitt & Paterson result is justly famous. 64.134.236.244 (talk) 23:43, 9 July 2014 (UTC)
OK, then, I have two points. As the particular abstract model of computation appears to allow arithmetical operations, and "push" and "pop" can be simulated with arithmetical operations, and "recursion" can be simulated with "push" and "pop", the proof that P<R fails. I'm not saying the result necessarily fails, because I haven't gone through the necessary analysis, but both "examples" of schema in R alleged to be not in P are, in fact, inP. However, even if P<R is true in that particular abstract model of computation, is it true in other abstract models of computation? If not, it shouldn't be of interest even to computer scientists, and certainly is not of interest to mathematicians. — Arthur Rubin(talk)07:09, 10 July 2014 (UTC)
Computer scientists know very well that recursion is more powerful than iteration. The achievement of Hewitt and Paterson was to successfully formalize and prove the theorem. They successfully avoided the problem of using clumsy, artificial, inefficient arithmetical constructs to simulate control structure. 50.131.244.2 (talk) 05:07, 11 July 2014 (UTC)
Computer scientists know very well that recursion on almost all (single-threaded) real computers is implemented by iteration. It appears I have come to the conclusion that the Hewitt-Paterson paper is incorrect in mathematical models of computation, admitting the possibility that there are non-mathematical models in which it is accurate.
It seems strange that although Arthur Rubin claims to be a mathematician, he cannot understand the elementary theorem of Hewitt and Paterson. 107.193.184.20 (talk) 18:37, 12 July 2014 (UTC)
I understand the elementary unproved result of Hewitt and Paterson. The so-called proof requires a step which is not true unless the abstract computing model is incomplete unreasonable (i.e., it cannot compute even some primitive recursive functions). If you find incomplete abstract computing models interesting, that it is another matter. — Arthur Rubin(talk)07:19, 13 July 2014 (UTC)
Arthur, the proof of the Hewitt&Paterson theorem is valid. You should ask a mathematician to explain it to you. Also, it would help if you learned a little Computer Science to understand why the theorem is famous. 64.134.237.44 (talk) 19:49, 13 July 2014 (UTC)
It's obvious why the theorem would be important, if true, and if applicable to "reasonable" (I'll explain the pun, later, if anyone is interested, but the term "reasonable" in the title of my Ph.D. thesis is the meaning intended) models of computation. It may even be accurate in abstract models of computation where not even recursive will model an actual programming or recursive function theory. — Arthur Rubin(talk)21:11, 13 July 2014 (UTC)
Mathematics self proves its own consistency
Latest comment: 10 years ago7 comments4 people in discussion
Professor Hewitt has proved that "Mathematics self proves its own consistency."
The proof was published here. (Arthur Rubin was looking for this reference.)
It will be presented at IR'14. 50.242.100.195 (talk) 00:45, 9 July 2014 (UTC)
Fair enough. By changing the rules of logical derivation, one can obtain any result. The question is, is "direct logic" a useful "model" for mathematics, as opposed to being a useful model for computing. — Arthur Rubin(talk)15:12, 9 July 2014 (UTC)
Classical Direct Logic is the most powerful available logic for mathematics incorporating capabilities that are not available in first-order logic including the ability to easily reason about its own inference capabilities and to accurately model Peano natural numbers and real numbers. Complaints similar to yours were made when Arabic numbers and then imaginary numbers were introduced into mathematics. 64.134.236.244 (talk) 23:54, 9 July 2014 (UTC)
I would like to hear from someone other than Hewitt and his students. I said that already, but there seem to be no such people willing to state that Hewitt's results have meaning. As for "accurately model" .... it depends on what you mean by "accurately". As it seems to produce different results than standard first-order logic or intuitionistic logic, the question of being "accurate" is the wrong question. A correct question is: Is it useful? I have not seen an attempt at an answer. — Arthur Rubin(talk)06:39, 10 July 2014 (UTC)
The reason that the Stanford people invented inconsistency robustness was to make useful theories of practice. (A single inconsistency destroys the usefulness of a classical theory.) 50.131.244.2 (talk) 04:58, 11 July 2014 (UTC)
As for "Arabic numbers" (whatever that means), there was no change of meaning in that introduction, although it allowed significant text compression. Imaginary numbers are different, but few doubt they are useful. Few doubted they were useful even when first introduced. — Arthur Rubin(talk)07:24, 10 July 2014 (UTC)
Imaginary numbers were defined in 1572 by Rafael Bombelli. At the time, such numbers were regarded as fictitious or useless, much as zero and the negative numbers once were. Many mathematicians were slow to adopt the use of imaginary numbers, including René Descartes who wrote about them in his La Géométrie, where the term was meant to be derogatory. 50.131.244.2 (talk) 04:55, 11 July 2014 (UTC)
TM?
Latest comment: 10 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
This raises the question whether Arthur Rubin is a mathematician. For example, when did he last publish an original mathematical theorem? Also, when did he last give a talk at a professional meeting?
Professor Hewitt will deliver the following refereed papers at the upcoming conference [IR'14]:
Inconsistency Robustness in Foundations: Mathematics self proves its own Consistency and Other Matters
A relevant question is: When did any mathematician last deliver a "refereed paper" at a conference? In my experience, conference talks may relate to past and future refereed papers, but a mathematician does not present a "refereed paper" at a conference. Again, it may be different in computer science. Then again, the poster is obviously one of Carl's students, and may not actually know anything what Carl is doing.
My qualifications as a mathematician are irrelevant to this article; you may bring up the matter on Talk:Arthur Rubin, if you feel it appropriate, and you do it within Wikipedia guidelines, so it would not result in an IP block of your institution.
At Computer Science conferences (like [http://ir14.org IR'14) there are two kinds of talks: invited and presentations of refereed articles. The latter are cite-able in the literature. 50.131.244.2 (talk) 19:21, 15 July 2014 (UTC)
Students at Stanford work very closely with Professor Hewitt. Consequently, some of them are experts on mathematical theorems that he has published recently. 107.193.184.20 (talk) 19:33, 15 July 2014 (UTC)
The consensus is that Arthur Rubin was once a mathematician, however, unfortunately not a good one although a long time ago he did well on a mathematical competition. 50.242.100.195 (talk) 19:46, 15 July 2014 (UTC)
So, you have not presented evidence that math conferences have "presentations of refereed articles". You are presenting evidence that Carl is not an active mathematician; perhaps you should reconsider what you wrote.
The consensus of Carl's students is that "Arthur Rubin was once a mathematician, ...." Wikipedia consensus appears different. Similarly, consensus of Carl's students is that Carl is a mathematician. I'm still not sure. He does have a Ph.D. in mathematics, but the subject is in computer science. Perhaps there wasn't a computer science degree at MIT in 1971.
Almost all his results presented as being in mathematics actually make no sense in mathematics, although they may make sense in computer science. His results on direct logic are in the realm of mathematical logic, so I suppose he must be considered a mathematician. However, I have seen no evidence that there is a concept of soundness which applies to direct logic. Logic without soundness is a "word" (symbol?) game. — Arthur Rubin(talk) 06:42, 16 July 2014
A proof that non-deterministic polynomial time computation is not equivalent polynomial time computation would be of interest mainly for the proof technique. For Computer Science, the crucial aspect is Hewitt's theorem that concurrent computation can be exponentially faster than lambda calculus computation.64.134.223.48 (talk) 20:57, 17 July 2014 (UTC)
The soundness theorem of Direct Logic is that if a proposition Ψ of mathematics about sets over the natural numbers is provable, then Ψ is true in the standard model of sets over the natural numbers (i.e., ⊢Ψ implies ⊧Ψ). 171.64.70.20 (talk) 19:54, 16 July 2014 (UTC)
Are you claiming that, solely because Carl is a computer scientist, he is a mathematician? Or that all "useful" math is computer science? I'm sure that neither of those statements is mainstream, even among computer science experts.
False, for appropriate definition of "almost all". At least, not in my fields of expertise, including questions such as P = NP. Of course, most of my fields aren't considered practical.
Interesting, if true. Needs an interpretation of the "⊢" symbol in the language of direct logic, which does not appear to be the obvious interpretation.
Wikipedia has compiled quite a record of prejudice against Professor Hewitt
Latest comment: 10 years ago14 comments4 people in discussion
Wikipedia has compiled quite a record of prejudice against Professor Hewitt (almost on a par with antisemitism that Einstein faced back in Germany). 50.131.244.2 (talk) 18:53, 19 July 2014 (UTC)
For the benefit of Hewitt's students, see Godwin's law. For the benefit of others, note that Carl is the only person who has published comments about Wikipedia's criticism of Carl. — Arthur Rubin(talk)07:44, 21 July 2014 (UTC)
Arthur Rubin is pleased that more people have not protested Wikipedia's record of prejudice against Professor Hewitt.
Very few people in Germany protested when Jewish professors were dismissed from German universities. Does Godwin think that it is better to forget or to deny? 50.131.244.2 (talk) 04:51, 22 July 2014 (UTC)
I note that only Carl, himself, thinks that Wikipedia is prejudiced against him. If there were others, the fact might be notable.
But the fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.
As illustrated above, Arthur Rubin has repeatedly insulted Professor Hewitt. It is not clear why Wikipedia has allowed his unacceptable behavior to continue.171.66.221.130 (talk) 23:16, 22 July 2014 (UTC)
Is Hewitt more like Einstein or more like Bozo the Clown? I don't think he's much like either. For those who do not understand English, the statement is a parable, justifying the statement "not all who are laughed at are geniuses", and implying that Hewitt is not a genius, even though his actions on Wikipedia and his importance in many of the fields in which you (the floating IP who replies to himself, or possibly one or more of Hewitt's students) claim to be important are questioned by a few active Wikipedians, including me.
I've given my professional opinion as to some of Hewitt's work — mostly, that it doesn't appear accurate, treated as being in the field it appears (to me) to be in. Hewitt may claim it's in a different (non-mathematical) field. If so, my opinion may be irrelevant, even though accurate. — Arthur Rubin(talk)10:42, 11 August 2014 (UTC)
No idea about mathematics, but in computer science he's generally looked upon as one sharp cookie. I've never interacted with him (nor do I particularly desire to), but I do use some derivative of his work each and every day of my working life. So, since we're flattening this argument to a single dimension, I'd vote for closer to Einstein rather than Bozo the Clown. I don't think that's a stretch. Brycehughes (talk) 03:16, 12 August 2014 (UTC)
I can respect that. It still leaves open the question of whether he is a mathematician, as opposed to a computer scientist. I've never claimed to be a computer scientist (a programmer, yes). I don't really see where Hewitt claims to be a mathematician. I would be interested to know if you know enough about his work in "direct logic", or in his statement that "recursion is superior to iteration" (which is false in mathematical algorithm theory), to know whether the work is useful. — Arthur Rubin(talk)23:55, 12 August 2014 (UTC)
Outrageous that Wikipedia continues to allow insinuation that Professor Hewitt is "Bozo the Clown"
Latest comment: 10 years ago16 comments9 people in discussion
It is outrageous that Wikipedia continues to allow the insinuation that Professor Hewitt is "Bozo the Clown." Does Wikipedia not care a whit about its reputation?
Meanwhile, Arthur Rubin (who has not be active professionally for decades) cannot understand the famous theorem by Hewitt and Paterson even though it is very simple. However, Arther is doing a good job of bullying Wikipedia editors like Brice Hughes (see above).
On the other hand, Professor Hewitt recently served as Program Chair of a very important scientific conference at Stanford. See IR'14 with links to important videos
It appears the anon still can't read. And I understand the famous result of Hewitt and Paterson is not mathematical; and is incorrect when interpreted as a theorem in (generalized) recursion theory. Considering Hewitt's expertise in computer science, I decline to make a professional statement as to whether it makes sense in computer science and is accurate and/or proved when interpreted in that field. The fact that the argument in the paper presented here appears to me to be obviously wrong doesn't mean that it is obviously wrong, only that it is obviously mathematically wrong. However, assuming the person or persons behind the IPs qualify as even a student of Hewitt's work, he/she/they should be able to refute the arguments I gave, rather than merely deny them; but neither the argument nor the refutation really should be on this page, or probably anywhere on Wikipedia. — Arthur Rubin(talk)14:22, 16 August 2014 (UTC)
Why does Wikipedia continue to allow Arthur Rubin to insult Professor Hewitt?
The famous article by Hewitt and Paterson has a simple mathematical proof of the mathematical theorem that recursion is more powerful than iteration given the appropriate premises as setting. Their theorem is universally accepted with the exception of one outlier: Arthur Rubin (who has done nothing professionally for decades). Exactly what problem does Arthur Rubin see with their simple elementary mathematical proof?
Guys... chill. This talk page has been viewed 180 times over the past 30 days. Assuming a 2:1 views to people ratio, which is probably far too low, then that would be about 90 people who *may* have bothered to read the preceding conversation. And how many of those people would not have already have a previously formed opinion on Hewitt and his work? I'm sure that is far lower still.
Nobody is going to remember Carl Hewitt based on a conversation on a Wikipedia talk page where somebody insinuated that there may be some tangental relationship between Carl Hewitt and Bozo the Clown. You're making a mountain out of a mole hill, and as a result simply baiting Arthur Rubin to respond each time. Keep going and maybe he'll come up with some new "insult". Are you going to then spawn a new conversation about that? Ad infinitum? Relax, take a breather, and focus on finding reliable sources that support your assertions, and then start talk page conversations about those. This is an encyclopedia. Brycehughes (talk) 19:30, 16 August 2014 (UTC)
What seems to be happening is that people in the research community hear that Wikipedia is bad-mouthing Professor Hewitt. So they hop over here to register a complaint. This will continue until Wikipedia shapes up. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 107.193.184.20 (talk • contribs) 17:50, August 24, 2014
No, Hewitt has wandered into a dark place. It's likely he'll recover, if he looks at Wikipedia articles on other subjects.
I suspect that it's the same person (or possibly two or three) people complaining, not new people. I've noticed that none of these "people in the research community" want to identify where in the research community they are located. My bet is Hewitt's office, although it's possible that some new people read Hewitt's essay on Wikipedia, and believe it without doing any "research". — Arthur Rubin(talk)00:44, 30 August 2014 (UTC)
For what it's worth, I've explained the problem with the proof. But neither the proof nor my refutation has a place on Wikipedia, regardless of who is correct. — Arthur Rubin(talk)00:58, 30 August 2014 (UTC)
Everyone here seems to have given up contributing to Wikipedia. No one gives Arthur Rubin any credence to the point that they are completely uninteresting in responding to what he has to say even though it is obviously nonsense. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 171.66.208.130 (talk) 20:11, 29 October 2014 (UTC)
I don't see any recent history of disruptive editing of the article or of insults about Professor Rubin, only of disruption of this talk page. I see reasonable edits by User:Arthur Rubin and by User:Brycehughes and unreasonable edits to this talk page by IPs, making unsubstantiated allegations of insulting the subject of the article. What if anything is the issue, other than that unregistered editors want to start a war over possible stale edits? Robert McClenon (talk) 15:54, 22 November 2014 (UTC)
Latest comment: 10 years ago3 comments2 people in discussion
Please delete this article to save us further misery.
The article is incredibly obsolete because it has been locked against editing for years.50.131.244.2 (talk) 19:57, 20 December 2014 (UTC)
That was caused by constant vandalism. If you want to request an edit to this page, you can do so. The article simply cannot be deleted for that reason only, as there are plenty of other semi-protected pages. George Edward C – Talk – Contributions19:59, 20 December 2014 (UTC)
Another reason to delete is that the talk page is an embarrassment to Wikipedia because of Arthur Rubin continually insulting Professor Hewitt.50.131.244.2 (talk) 20:02, 20 December 2014 (UTC)
Home page
Professor Hewitt's home page is at
[14]
21:31, 23 February 2015 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 171.66.209.130 (talk)
Erlang 2015 conference keynote
Latest comment: 9 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Latest comment: 9 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Professor Carl Hewitt is the creator (together with his students and other colleagues) of the Actor Model of computation. The Actor Model and Actor programming languages influenced the development of the Scheme programming language and the π calculus, and inspired several other systems and programming languages. The Model is in widespread industrial use including eBay, Microsoft, and Twitter. For his doctoral thesis, he designed Planner, the first programming language based on pattern-invoked procedural plans.
Professor Hewitt’s recent research centers on the area of Inconsistency Robustness, i.e., system performance in the face of continual, pervasive inconsistencies (a shift from the previously dominant paradigms of inconsistency denial and inconsistency elimination, i.e., to sweep inconsistencies under the rug). ActorScript and the Actor Model on which it is based can play an important role in the implementation of more inconsistency-robust information systems. Professor Hewitt is an advocate in the emerging campaign against mandatory installation of backdoors in the Internet of Things.[16]
Professor Hewitt is Board Chair of iRobust™, an international scientific society for the promotion of the field of Inconsistency Robustness. He is also Board Chair of Standard IoT™, an international standards organization for the Internet of Things, which is using the Actor Model to unify and generalize emerging standards for IoT. He has been a Visiting Professor at Stanford University and Keio University and is Emeritus in the EECS department at MIT.
Latest comment: 9 years ago7 comments6 people in discussion
Regarding the lock status this article has had for years and seeing how there is the same, small number of actors always playing the Talk Page field, something must be done about this article sooner rather than later. FYI, I was drawn into this article by this source:[17]186.120.130.16 (talk) 04:55, 24 August 2015 (UTC)
Wrong. Established Wikipedia editors, including me (I — someone help me with the grammar), have been trying to remove spam by Professor Hewitt and/or his students for years. An honest statement would be that Professor Hewitt has been feuding with Wikipedia for years. — Arthur Rubin(talk)09:22, 2 September 2015 (UTC)
My impression is that this was removed due to concerns with WP:BLP. I think that User:SlimVirgin would know more, if you inquire on her user page. — Carl (CBM · talk)
I was just about to add it based on a smattering of sources: [18], [19] for example. I think it's fine by WP:BLP for being reliably sourced: it's reasonably shown by sources that his disruption is ongoing, and that he is notable for it. Ivanvector🍁 (talk) 18:42, 14 September 2015 (UTC)
I still think that SlimVirgin would have a better historical perspective on this. I vaguely remember it has come up before, but I wasn't really involved and don't have the details at hand. — Carl (CBM · talk) 19:35, 14 September 2015 (UTC)
I was able to find some background in the talk archive of this page, and I agree with what several people wrote there, that there is no need to mention the ban in the main article, because it is a very insignificant aspect of his scientific career. — Carl (CBM · talk) 17:39, 15 September 2015 (UTC)
Yes, one newspaper article (and a book written by some prominent Wikipedians) isn't enough to justify including this in the article. On a separate note, this article seems to have been accumulating quite a bit of citation spam again... —Ruud20:05, 15 September 2015 (UTC)
Suggested paragraph
It is suggested that the following paragraph be added to the begining of the article.
"Professor Carl Hewitt is the founder of the field of Inconsistency Robustness, i.e., the science and engineering of large systems with continual, pervasive inconsistencies (a shift from the previously dominant paradigms of inconsistency denial and inconsistency elimination).[1][2] He is currently Board Chair of the International Society for Inconsistency Robustness.[1][2] Previously, he was Program Chair of international symposia on the subject at Stanford in 2011 and 2014.[1][2] The standard text on the subject is Inconsistency Robustness for which Hewitt is co-editor and a contributor.[1][2] Operational aspects of Inconsistency Robustness are addressed using the Actor Model of computation and inferential aspects using Direct Logic™.[1][2]"
The review supports many of the points above and all are supported in the articles of Vol. 52 Studies in Logic. The review is published on the catalogue of College Publications and elsewhere.Carl (talk) 12:07, 2 May 2016 (UTC)
I'll make my question more specific. It looks like the review was commissioned by "Studies in Logic", which is a little strange because they're the ones publishing the book. Basically, it's blurb. If you can show where it was published independent of SiL then it becomes a lot more useful. Regardless, the review doesn't mention you as "founder", your role as "Board Chair" or "Program Chair", doesn't mention that it's the "standard text". You're not giving me a lot of confidence here. Lesser Cartographies (talk) 17:21, 2 May 2016 (UTC)
Professor Meyer's review was independently submitted on his own initiative. The editors of College Publications decided to publish it in their catalogue, which is an appropriate place for it to be published.Carl (talk) 15:55, 3 May 2016 (UTC)
I've been in and around academia most of my adult life and I've never heard of someone reviewing a book on their own initiative and then sending the review along to the publisher. Far more common (as I'm sure you're aware) is a publisher requesting a review for promotional purposes. That's perfectly ethical and above-board, but those kinds of reviews aren't appropriate for demonstrating that the idea has picked up traction in the wider community.
You've had a long, varied and successful career. The article as it stands does a good job of hitting the high points. IR isn't (yet) one of those high points. Adding a paragraph for work that's still in its infancy (in my professional opinion) weakens the rest of the article—it looks like you're having to add padding because the rest of what's there isn't that impressive.
Where would you suggest that Professor Meyer should have published his review? The editors of College Publishers published it at their own discretion and did not request the review for promotional purposes. Professor Meyer independently created the review on his own initiative so that the ideas in the articles of Vol 52 of Studies in logic would reach a wider community and would gain traction so they can be further developed and used in applications.
At this point, the subject of the article (me) is far better known for my work during the last decade on Inconsistency Robustness than anything else other than the Actor Model, which has been incorporated into Inconsistency Robustness. Consequently, the article is now completely obsolete. Unfortunately, your professional opinion is rather out of date. Evidently, you did not participate in the international symposia at Stanford or any of the numerous seminars and conferences over the years or view the many videos of the events. Vol. 52 of Studies in Logic is becoming required reading at leading research centers.
I would have suggested the Journal of Symbolic Logic, as they do occasional reviews. As to what you're known for, google scholar has citation counts for your publications. "Viewing control structures" cracked 1600. I'm seeing another 20-odd with over 100 cites. "Inconsistency Robustness" the book has 2. Going through the table of contents:
0 Formalizing common sense reasoning for scalable inconsistency-robust information coordination using Direct Logic Reasoning and the Actor Model
0 Inconsistency robustness in foundations: Mathematics self proves its own consistency and other matters
(not listed) "Inconsistency: Its present impacts and future prospects"
0 Two sources of explosion
26 Actor Model of computation: Scalable robust information systems
4 Inconsistency robustness for logic programs
(not listed) ActorScript extension of C#, C++, Java, Objective C, JavaScript, and SystemVerilog using iAdaptive concurrency for antiCloud privacy and security
(not listed) Some types of inconsistency in legal reasoning
0 Rules versus standards: Competing notions of inconsistency: Robustness in the Supreme Court and Federal Circuit
0 Politics and pragmatism in scientific ontology construction
(not listed) Modelling ungrammaticality in a precise grammar of English
(not listed) The Singularity is Here
(not listed) Biological responses to chemical exposure: Case studies in how to manage ostensible inconsistencies using the Claim Framework
0 From inter-annotation to intra-publication inconsistency
Yes, the article is obsolete. That's a feature in encyclopedias. Once IR has picked up a substantial number of citations we'll be happy to make IR a substantial portion of your article. But we're not going to take your word on what you're known for. Lesser Cartographies (talk) 21:41, 7 May 2016 (UTC)
Journal of Symbolic Logic doesn't seem to have published submitted reviews for a long time.
Google Scholar is not a reliable source seemingly because of issues having to do with the amount being invested perhaps resulting from the amount of revenue that it generates.
Having a deliberately obsolete encyclopedia is a disservice to its users and it should not be policy that Wikipedia is deliberately obsolete.
It is not clear why you listed a table of contents without listing authors and consequently diminished the authors.
I refrained from listing the author names as a courtesy. Pointing out that a particular piece of work hasn't been cited five years after it was published is not much of a compliment. That's an easy problem to fix, though. Here's the updated list.
List of contributors and titles to IR with google scholar citation counts where known
(0) "Formalizing common sense reasoning for scalable inconsistency-robust information coordination using Direct Logic Reasoning and the Actor Model" Carl Hewitt
(0) "Inconsistency robustness in foundations: Mathematics self proves its own consistency and other matters" Carl Hewitt
(n/a) "Inconsistency: Its preset impacts and future prospects" John Woods
(0) "Two sources of explosion" Eric Kao
(26)"Actor Model of computation: Scalable robust information systems" Carl Hewitt
(4) "Inconsistency robustness for logic programs" Carl Hewitt
(na) "ActorScript extension of C#, C++, Java, Objective C, JavaScript, and SystemVerilog using iAdaptive concurrency for antiCloud privacy and security" Carl Hewitt
(na) "Some types of inconsistency in legal reasoning" Anne Gardner
(0) "Rules versus standards: Competing notions of inconsistency: Robustness in the Supreme Court and Federal Circuit" Stefania Fusco and David Olson
(0) "Politics and pragmatism in scientific ontology construction" Mike Travers
(na) "Modelling ungrammaticality in a precise grammar of English" Dan Flickinger
(na) "The singularity is here" Fanya S. Montalvo
(na) "Biological responses to chemical exposure: Case studies in how to manage ostensible inconsistencies using the Claim Framework" Catherine Blake
(0) "From inter-annotation to intra-publication inconsistency" Alaa Abi Haidar, Mihnea Tufi, and Jean-Gabriel Ganascia
With that out of the way.... I'm sorry to hear that Google Scholar is not a reliable source for recording citations of IR. Can you give me a couple dozen papers that have cited either the IR book or the individual papers within it (excepting your "Actor Model" chapter, where I assume the citation count is reasonably accurate)? Alternatively, do you know of a more reliable source where I can locate these papers myself?
As to our featured obsolescence: editors here have a deep distrust of shaping articles based on the opinions of expert editors. First, there are far more articles than experts willing to edit them, and second, as you've experienced here, experts enjoy disagreeing with each other --- and there's no good way for non-experts to adjudicate who is right. So we deliberately ignore arguments made on the basis of personal competence (no matter how deep that competence may be) and rely as much as we can on neutral, reliable and verifiable sources (note that each of those are used as terms of art). As an expert myself (I also have PhD in computer science) this can be uniquely frustrating: I'm currently the big fish in my little pond, yet I can't log in here under my own name and edit topics where I'm an acknowledged expert without going through the process of digging up citations just like any other editor. And as I'm sure you're aware, only a fraction of an expert's expertise is ever reduced to citable form.
The upside is that a group of amateurs can knock out a respectable (if always slightly-out-of-date) article about nearly any topic that won't be entirely wrong. They can disagree about whether sources are reliable, neutral or verifiable, but those kinds of arguments can be adjudicated by other non-experts. And thus the project shambles forward.
Perhaps these will help:
If Wikipedia had been available around the sixth century B.C., it would have reported the view that the Earth is flat as a fact and without qualification.
If Wikipedia had been available around the sixth century B.C., it would have reported the view that the Earth is flat as a fact and without qualification. And it would have reported the views of Eratosthenes (who correctly determined the earth's circumference in 240BC) either as controversial, or a fringe view. Similarly if available in Galileo's time, it would have reported the view that the sun goes round the earth as a fact, and if Galileo had been a Vicipaedia editor, his view would have been rejected as 'originale investigationis'. Of course, if there is a popularly held or notable view that the earth is flat, Wikipedia reports this view. But it does not report it as true. It reports only on what its adherents believe, the history of the view, and its notable or prominent adherents. Wikipedia is inherently a non-innovative reference work: it stifles creativity and free-thought. Which is A Good Thing. [[WP::FLAT]]
}}
The Wikipedia philosophy can be summed up thusly: "Experts are scum."
The Wikipedia philosophy can be summed up thusly: "Experts are scum." For some reason people who spend 40 years learning everything they can about, say, the Peloponnesian War—and indeed, advancing the body of human knowledge—get all pissy when their contributions are edited away by Randy in Boise who heard somewhere that sword-wielding skeletons were involved. And they get downright irate when asked politely to engage in discourse with Randy until the sword-skeleton theory can be incorporated into the article without passing judgment. WP:RANDY
If the IR work has indeed been cited dozens of times in the literature, it would be an enormous help if you could show me how to track down those citations. If those citations don't yet exist, then I'm really at a loss as to how you can demonstrate to amateurs that this is the work you're now most known for. Lesser Cartographies (talk) 23:50, 7 May 2016 (UTC)
Citations are too numerous to be tracked down and listed here.
Also tracking down very prestigious citations such as the review by Professor Meyer have bee dismissed by some editors of this page. Wikipedia needs more knowledgeable editors who are also more accountable.
Is there there some official page that says it is Wikipedia policy is to be obsolete? A policy to be obsolete is a policy to promote inaccuracy, which would be a disservice to Wikipedia users.
Is there there some official page that says it is Wikipedia policy to discriminate against knowledgeable editors? A policy to to discriminate against knowledgeable editors would be harmful to the development of Wikipedia. As well as lacking in diversity, the current population is lacking in knowledgeable Wikipedia editors.
When you're willing to list the citations I'll be happy to continue the conversation. The limitations of wikipedia have been discussed at length for 15 years now; the two essays I quoted above have pointers to that literature. Lesser Cartographies (talk) 00:01, 9 May 2016 (UTC)
Yes, there are citations at the bottom of the page. #1 and #9 are duplicates. #2 is the review of #1 and #9 that was not published in the peer-reviewed literatre. You wrote or edited numbers 1, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9. #3 is an organization that I believe you co-founded. Based on those citations, I'd say IR has picked up no traction at all in the wider community. When I was asking for citations, I was asking for cites to the IR book from people other than yourself. Perhaps that wasn't clear. Lesser Cartographies (talk) 03:27, 9 May 2016 (UTC)
Admittedly, the Inconsistency Robustness community has not yet reached majority status. But it has gained significant traction by holding international symposia at Stanford, forming a scientific society with an extremely prestigious board, and publishing articles in the well-reviewed Vol. 52 of Studies in Logic, which is arguably the most prestigious series of books in the area. Carl (talk) 04:04, 9 May 2016 (UTC)
That's all good, but the coin of the realm here is independent, reliable sources; in this case, multiple publications authored by someone other than you that cite the book and/or the papers in it. Citation counts have their flaws, but they are an objective measure. When this work is seen by the community as important enough to cite (and cite often), we'll have no difficulty including a couple of paragraphs in the article. Until then, it's just not happening. Lesser Cartographies (talk) 05:36, 9 May 2016 (UTC)
Computer Science does not work according to your preconceptions. "Inconsistency Robustness" has over 2K listings in the Google index. Inconsistency Robustness has enough traction and momentum that it will soon become mainstream.
Having more knowledgeable Wikipedia editors would greatly help. However, almost no Computer Scientists will put up with being subjected the abuse often encountered on Wikipedia unless they are truly fed up with the inaccuracies in articles. For example, many Computer Scientists are deeply offended by the above thesis that The Wikipedia philosophy can be summed up thusly:"Experts are scum."Carl (talk) 16:13, 9 May 2016 (UTC)
I suppose it's possible that "Computer Science" (as opposed to fields whose practitioners do not Capitalize the name of the Field) does not work the same way as any other scientific field. But we (Wikipedia editors) would need evidence of that and a good guideline for determining which papers may be considered "accepted" before we could act on that. — Arthur Rubin(talk)10:25, 9 May 2016 (UTC)
This is an excellent issue because almost every scientific discipline is moving in the direction of Computer Science. Wikipedia needs criteria for notability and reliability for videos, conference proceedings, electronic archives such as HAL, etc. Carl (talk) 16:13, 9 May 2016 (UTC)
Wikipedia has reliability and notability guidelines for videos and conference proceedings; they just don't agree with what you think they should be. If you can provide reasonably convincing evidence that, contrary to centuries of precidence (sp?), conference proceedings are not just a list of papers presented at the conference, with some minor copyedits, we could work from there. So far, none of the edits I've seen have presented arguments that or examples of nontraditional conference proceedings. — Arthur Rubin(talk)02:05, 10 May 2016 (UTC)
In Computer Science, conference proceedings are extremely notable and authoritative sources. Often for purposes of tenure and promotion, books and journal articles are copyedits of conference articles. Video has become a publication medium of choice because it has greater impact and viewership. Often video is use to advertise print media for those desiring a deeper dive. Carl (talk) 19:05, 14 May 2016 (UTC)
@Arthur Rubin: Carl is partially correct. In computer science, most conferences submissions (and many workshops) are peer-reviewed, and the most selective conferences are more difficult to get into than the most selective journals. This is a very different model from mathematics, where (I'm given to understand) pretty much anyone can show up and present a paper without any review at all. There also exist several notorious conferences where peer-review is, shall we say, automated. Whether or not the symposia in question was peer-reviewed or not makes no difference at all for the text of the article. (BTW, Carl, my PhD is in computer science, and I work as a staff scientist for one of the more mundane three-letter agencies. I also spent a solid month researching both the written rules of wikipedia and how those rules were enforced in practice before I started editing here. You're learning what I learned, only much more slowly and with far more aggravation. You're welcome to continue that path, of course; but as one scientist to another, I'll just point out that you're wasting a lot of your time.) Lesser Cartographies (talk) 16:36, 10 May 2016 (UTC)
@Lesser Cartographies: Please note that I am not intending to cause aggravation. Suggestions for improvement are greatly appreciated.
Submissions to the symposia at Stanford in 2011 and 2014 on Inconsistency Robustness were peer-reviewed by very prestigious program committees who requested revisions in the articles before they were published in proceedings. Articles were then further revised at the direction of editors for College Publications before they were published in Vol. 52 of Studies in Logic.
What you mean by "authoritative" (or even what we might mean by "authoritative") does not necessarily imply what we mean by "reliable".
I suggest you revert your change, since there were some replies, and changing text which is replied to may place the replies in a false light. — Arthur Rubin(talk)03:39, 16 May 2016 (UTC)
I am currently going through the process of publishing a letter to the editor of CACM. In my experience and the experience of many of my colleagues, publishing a letter to the editor can be even more rigorous and strongly vetted than publishing an article in CACM. Carl (talk) 00:48, 14 June 2016 (UTC)
Improved suggestion
It is suggested that the following paragraph be added to the begining of the article.
"Professor Carl Hewitt is one of the principal researchers in the field of Inconsistency Robustness, i.e., the science and engineering of large systems with continual, pervasive inconsistencies (a shift from the previously dominant paradigms of inconsistency denial and inconsistency elimination).[1][2] He is currently Board Chair of the International Society for Inconsistency Robustness.[3] Previously, he was Program Chair of international symposia on the subject at Stanford in 2011 and 2014.[1][3][2] The text on the subject is Inconsistency Robustness for which Hewitt is co-editor and a contributor.[1][2] Operational aspects of Inconsistency Robustness are addressed using the Actor Model of computation and inferential aspects using Direct Logic™.[1][2]"
Of course, there is a whole community of researchers involved who have held two international symposia at Stanford, established an international scientific society, and published articles in Vol. 52 of Studies in Logic. Carl (talk) 22:22, 8 May 2016 (UTC)
International Society for Inconsistency Robustness
The International Society for Inconsistency Robustness (iRobustTM[20]) is a scientific society to promote the science and practice of inconsistency robustness.
The Board of iRobust is:
John Woods (UBC Philosophy)
Mary-Anne Williams (Sydney Innovation and Enterprise Research Lab),
Mario Tokoro (Sony CSL),
Patrick Suppes (Stanford Philosophy, deceased),
Martha Russell (Stanford Media X),
Jeff Rulifson (ex Oracle),
Carlo Rovelli (Marseille Centre de Physique Theorique de Luminy),
Greg Restall (Melbourne Philosophy),
Stanley Peters (Stanford CSLI),
Peter Neumann (SRI),
Ike Nassi (UC Santa Cruz),
Hideyuki Nakashima (Future University Hakodate),
Marvin Minsky (MIT Media Lab, deceased),
Fanya S. Montalvo (independent consultant),
Annemarie Mol (University of Amsterdam),
J.J. Meyer (University of Utrecht),
Mark Musen (Stanford Center for Biomedical Informatics Research),
John Law (Open University)
Mike Huhns (South Carolina Electrical & Computer Engineering),
Carl Hewitt (chair),
Elihu M. Gerson, (Tremont Research Institute),
Anne Gardner (International Association for Artificial Intelligence and Law),
Nancy Cartwright (Durham Centre for Humanities Engaging Science and Society),
Alan Bundy (Edinburgh Informatics),
Richard Boland (Case Western Reserve),
and Gil Alterovitz (MIT EECS and Harvard Medical School)
The material below for possible inclusion in the article was moved here at the request of another editor
Latest comment: 8 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Professor Carl Hewitt is the founder of the field of Inconsistency Robustness, i.e., the science and engineering of large systems with continual, pervasive inconsistencies (a shift from the previously dominant paradigms of inconsistency denial and inconsistency elimination).[1][2][3] He is currently Board Chair of the International Society for Inconsistency Robustness.[1][2] Previously, he was Program Chair of international symposia on the subject at Stanford in 2011 and 2014.[1][2][3] The standard text on the subject is Inconsistency Robustness for which Hewitt is co-editor and a contributor.[1][2] Operational aspects of Inconsistency Robustness are addressed using the Actor Model of computation and inferential aspects using Direct Logic™.[1][2]
Hewitt is the creator (together with his students and other colleagues) of the Actor Model[4] of computation, which influenced the development of the Scheme programming language and the π calculus, and inspired several other systems and programming languages.[1][2] The Actor Model is in widespread industrial use including eBay, Microsoft, and Twitter. ActorScript™[5] and the Actor Model on which it is based can play an important role in the implementation of more inconsistency-robust information systems.[1][2] Hewitt is Board Chair of Standard IoT™, an international standards organization for the Internet of Things, which is using the Actor Model to unify and generalize emerging standards for IoT.[6]
Hewitt is also the creator (together with his students and other colleagues) of Direct Logic™ for inference in Inconsistency Robust systems.[7][1][2] Inconsistency robust logic is an important conceptual advance in that requires that nothing “extra” can be inferred just from the presence of a contradiction.[2] A natural question that arises is the relationship between paraconsistency and inconsistency robustness. It turns out that a paraconsistent logic can allow erroneous inferences from an inconsistency that are not allowed by inconsistency robustness.[2] Of course, an inconsistency robust logic is also necessarily paraconsistent.[2]
The goal of Classical Direct Logic (a special case of Inconsistency Robust Direct Logic) is to provide mathematical foundations for Computer Science.[1][2] Because Direct Logic is strongly typed, it defies Gödel's meta-mathematical results on which is the proposition of the Dedekind/Peano theory of numbers that is true but unprovable.[1][2] Gödel proposed the sentence I'm unprovable. as a true but unprovable sentence.[1][2]I'm unprovable. is a sentence in Provability Logic which is untyped and consequently allows taking fixed points of untyped sentences to construct the sentence. However, Provability Logic is not suitable for the mathematical foundations of Computer Science, which require strong parameterized types. Consequently, I'm unprovable. is not a sentence in the mathematical foundations of Computer Science because it does not have a proper type.[1][8] The same type restrictions also block the liar, Richard's, Russell's, and Girad's paradoxes.[1] In fact, Wittgenstein correctly pointed out that Gödel's sentence leads to inconsistency in mathematics.[1] Consequently Gödel's argument (using his sentence) is incorrect that mathematics cannot prove its own consistency without itself falling into inconsistency.[1] In Direct Logic, mathematics formally proves its own consistency (using a very simple proof by contradiction) without evident self-contradiction in mathematics (e.g., all the usual paradoxes such as Russell, Berry, Girad, etc. do not produce inconsistencies).[1][8]
Furthermore, Professor Hewitt has been an advocate in the fight against IoT mandatory backdoors. In fact, one of the purposes of the Standard IoT Foundation is to establish a solid basis for the preservation of civil liberties.[6]
He has been a Visiting Professor at Stanford University and Keio University and is Emeritus in the EECS department at MIT.
Part of Hewitt's doctoral dissertation was the design of Planner, the first programming language based on pattern-invoked procedural plans based on assertions and goals (Logic Programs), which influenced the development of Prolog (which is effectively a subset that supports only backward chaining) and subsequent massivly concurrent programming languages (which incorporate Logic Program constructs) based on the Actor model.[9]
^ abcdefghijklmnopInconsistency Robustness. Carl Hewitt and John Woods assisted by Jane Spur editors. College Publications. ISBN-10: ISBN1848901593. 2015.
^ abcdefghijklmnCite error: The named reference JJ was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
^ ab International Society for Inconsistency Robustness [2]
^"Actor Model of computation: Scalable robust information systems. " in "Inconsistency Robustness". Carl Hewitt and John Woods assisted by Jane Spur editors. Vol. 52 of Studies in Logic. College Publications. ISBN-10: ISBN1848901593. 2015.
^"ActorScript extension of C#, C++, Java, Objective C, JavaScript, and SystemVerilog" in "Inconsistency Robustness". Carl Hewitt and John Woods assisted by Jane Spur editors. Vol. 52 of Studies in Logic. College Publications. ISBN-10: ISBN1848901593. 2015.
^ ab Carl Hewitt. "Why All Writs is a Trojan Horse" Letter to Editor. CACM. May 2016.
^"Formalizing common sense reasoning for scalable inconsistency-robust information coordination using Direct Logic Reasoning and the Actor Model." in "Inconsistency Robustness". Carl Hewitt and John Woods assisted by Jane Spur editors. Vol. 52 of Studies in Logic. College Publications. ISBN-10: ISBN1848901593. 2015.
^ ab "Carl Hewitt remembers Marvin Minsky" Remembering AI Pioneer Marvin Minsky. AAAI Spring Symposia. Stanford University. YouTube. March 16, 2016.
^"Inconsistency Robustness for Logic Programs" in "Inconsistency Robustness". Carl Hewitt and John Woods assisted by Jane Spur editors. Vol. 52 of Studies in Logic. College Publications. ISBN-10: ISBN1848901593. 2015.
Proposed compromise.
Latest comment: 8 years ago24 comments3 people in discussion
Carl Hewitt's recent work has focus on inconsistency robustness, a logical framework that can handle gracefully contradictory information in a system. [Then cite the book review, as I'm tool lazy to copy it over here.]
Seems a good compromise, except I'm not sure we have a reliable source that the framework is successful. I'd cite both Carl's personal page (a person's statement of what he is working on seems generally acceptable), and the book review. Also, per Wikipedia guidelines, we would say "Hewitt" rather than "Carl Hewitt", unless there are other Hewitts around. Perhaps:
Hewitt's recent work has a focus in "inconsistency robustness", a framework to handle gracefully contradictory information in a system.
Perhaps we could use the description from the publisher's web site:
The field of Inconsistency Robustness aims to provide practical rigorous foundations for computer information systems dealing with pervasively inconsistent information.
It could be considered self-serving, but they are qualified to talk about the aims of the field, without regard to whether the aims can be achieved. This might lead to the following sentence in the article:
Hewitt's recent work has been in "inconsistency robustness", which aims to provide practical rigorous foundations for systems dealing with pervasively inconsistent information.
Seems a good compromise, except I'm not sure we have a reliable source that the framework is successful. I'd cite both Carl's personal page (a person's statement of what he is working on seems generally acceptable), and the book review. Also, per Wikipedia guidelines, we would say "Hewitt" rather than "Carl Hewitt", unless there are other Hewitts around. Perhaps:
Hewitt's recent work has a focus in "inconsistency robustness", a framework to handle gracefully contradictory information in a system.
Sounds like a good start :-) Arthur Rubin is correct to say that the framework has not yet been widely accepted. It would probably be fair to say that the framework is the leading candidate within foundations of computer science. Intense research is ongoing. Carl (talk)
(ec x2) I like it. From a writing standpoint I think it would go well in the lede, but I understand some folks prefer that anything mentioned in the lede be expanded in the body of the article. It could be a one-sentence subsection under research, although I think that's giving a bit more weight than is due. Or we could add it to the first sentence under research: Hewitt's research has spanned a range of topics generally concerning the Procedural Embedding of Knowledge. He is best known for his work on the Planner programming language and the Actor model of computation. Hewitt's recent work has been in "inconsistency robustness", which aims to provide practical rigorous foundations for systems dealing with pervasively inconsistent information. Plus cites and wikification, of course. Lesser Cartographies (talk) 17:51, 10 May 2016 (UTC)
The topics of Planner and "Procedural Embedding of Knowledge" are now historical footnotes in my biography. I am now known for the Actor Model of computation and how it has been increasingly subsumed under Inconsistency Robustness in the last decade. Carl (talk) 18:03, 10 May 2016 (UTC)
@Prof. Carl Hewitt and Arthur Rubin: Perhaps: Hewitt's early research focused on the procedural (as opposed to logical) embedding of knowledge and culminated in the Planner programming language. He is best known for his work on the Actor model of computation. Hewitt's recent work has been in "inconsistency robustness", which aims to provide practical rigorous foundations for systems dealing with pervasively inconsistent information. Comments? Lesser Cartographies (talk) 19:16, 11 May 2016 (UTC)
@Lesser Cartographies and Arthur Rubin: Thanks! How about the following incorporating the above as well as a suggestion from Arthur Rubin below:
"Hewitt is best known for his work on the Actor model of computation. For the last decade, his work has been in "inconsistency robustness", which aims to provide practical rigorous foundations for systems dealing with pervasively inconsistent information. This work grew out of his doctoral dissertation focused on the procedural (as opposed to logical) embedding of knowledge, which was embodied in the Planner programming language."
If it can be sourced, that seems to be "consistent" with what Carl is saying, and the description of "inconsistency robustness" is taken from a somewhat self-serving, but acceptable, source. I would have written [[Planner (programming language)|Planner programming language]] rather than [[Planner (programming language)|Planner]] programming language, but I believe Carl can provide a better idea as to exactly what the link should be, considering the "principle of least surprise". It looks acceptable for the lead, provided that the individual items are properly sourced in the body. — Arthur Rubin(talk)03:57, 12 May 2016 (UTC)
Could an editor please add the compromise language or suggest improvements to the following:
Hewitt is best known for his work on the Actor model of computation. For the last decade, his work has been in "inconsistency robustness", which aims to provide practical rigorous foundations for systems dealing with pervasively inconsistent information. This work grew out of his doctoral dissertation focused on the procedural (as opposed to logical) embedding of knowledge, which was embodied in the Planner programming language.
@Prof. Carl Hewitt: My apologies for the delay; real live intervened. I've added the text as the intro paragraph to the research section and cited the IR book. In my opinion, I think that's the best cite we have and is sufficient; others may disagree, of course. Lesser Cartographies (talk) 19:32, 18 May 2016 (UTC)
@Lesser Cartographies: You are very welcome. The year 2015 is correct for the book. The year 2011 was for the conference proceedings, which College Publishers does not have.
Unfortunately, the current link in the article is to the Google advertising website, which has an incorrect listing for an editor of the book. A correct catalog listing can be found on the College Publications website. Carl (talk) 12:26, 19 May 2016 (UTC);
It's good that you removed the link to the Google website because it is unfair to Professor Woods. However, the College Publishers website on Series in Logic is just an authoritative catalog; it does not have advertising offering the book for sale. Instead, Amazon has advertising offering the book for sale. Carl (talk) 16:15, 21 May 2016 (UTC)
No problem. To be consistent, you should also be be uncomfortable providing links to the Google Books website because it definitely is an advertising website including links and prices. Carl (talk) 14:29, 22 May 2016 (UTC)
External links
Latest comment: 8 years ago13 comments3 people in discussion
Unfortunately, the DPLB server is way out of date. Consequently, the link should probably be removed.
The following links are more authoritative than the ones currently in the article:
The DPLB link is the most authoritative (which is to say, authoritative and independent from you) list we have of your work. We generally don't link to youtube videos without a very good reason. My preference would be to remove the video links that are in the article now, but that could probably stand some discussion first. (Have you considered setting up your own homepage and putting this material there?) Lesser Cartographies (talk) 02:14, 24 May 2016 (UTC)
Wikipedia aims to be helpful to its users. The DPLB link is harmful in three ways: 1) It point users to obsolete publications, 2) It does not point users to useful publications, and 3) it misleads by implying that there are no other publications. Consequently, the DPLB link should be removed. Carl (talk) 14:59, 24 May 2016 (UTC)
The videos above are authoritative in that they are publications of authoritative third-parties. If Wikipedia does not embrace video publications, it will become increasingly irrelevant. Carl (talk) 16:26, 24 May 2016 (UTC)
Have you read WP:YOUTUBE ? The word "authoritative' doesn't have any special meaning with regards to Wikipedia. Whereas reliable does. 17:00, 24 May 2016 (UTC)
Although Erlang Foundation and Internet Foundation are authoritative, it may not be appropriate to say that they are "reliable." Carl (talk) 18:40, 24 May 2016 (UTC)
You're sounding like an undergrad who wants their grade changed. Yes, I reviewed WP:YOUTUBE before making my decision. I also reviewed several other articles of scholars here to make sure I understood current practice. Based on that review and a review of the videos, I don't find them to be appropriate in an encyclopedia article.
As to DPLB: it doesn't list all of my publications, either, and it does list several of my papers that have long been superseded. The same can be said for any researcher who has worked long enough in this field. The fact that DPLB isn't perfect doesn't get in the way of the fact that it's quite useful. If you want a full bibliography out there with an explanation of which publications you consider most relevant, then put up a web page already. Most of us can't be bothered because we think DPLB and Google Scholar do a good enough job, and that the people using those tools are smart enough to understand their limitations. If that's not true in your case, that's fine, but trying to argue your special case at wikipedia is probably not a good use of your time. Lesser Cartographies (talk) 17:29, 24 May 2016 (UTC)
YouTube is just a commercial publisher. The relevant authoritative organizations for the videos above are the Erlang Foundation and the Internet Foundation. Carl (talk) 17:49, 24 May 2016 (UTC)
DPLB and Google Scholar are doing a terrible job of keeping current. Wikipedia will lose if it allows reference only to only DPLB and Google Scholar. Carl (talk) 17:52, 24 May 2016 (UTC)
The following link will do an adequate job of producing an up-to-date listing of my YouTube published videos: [21]. Carl (talk) 18:02, 24 May 2016 (UTC)
These proposed links are not acceptable per Wikipedia's policy on appropriate external links. If you want to have a complete listing of all the presentations you have given, please make a home page. We can link to that from here. —Ruud10:36, 25 May 2016 (UTC)
A complete listing of all the videos is inappropriate for encyclopedic purposes. Instead, links to a couple of authoritative videos is much more suitable. Carl (talk) 23:03, 26 May 2016 (UTC)
Integration of lede and research sections
Latest comment: 8 years ago3 comments2 people in discussion
There is a disconnect between the lede and research sections of the article.
They should be better integrated.
I have solved this by moving part of the lead section to the Research section. The lead now gives a more balanced summary of the article as a whole. —Ruud12:20, 27 May 2016 (UTC)
Thanks! Unfortunately, the lede still has too much emphasis on Planner which was just a part of the doctoral dissertation decades ago and which is of no particular importance today except that a backward-chaining subset of Planner was incorporated into Prolog. Carl (talk) 17:45, 27 May 2016 (UTC)
Please allow this talk page and the article page to be edited
Latest comment: 8 years ago7 comments2 people in discussion
This edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.
Please allow this talk page and the article page to be edited
Not done: With due respect, this is not how a protected edit request works. These are for requests for content changes. If you would like this page to be unprotected, visit WP:RFPP. — Andy W.(talk ·ctb)19:41, 2 June 2016 (UTC)
I am not requesting that I be able to edit this talk page or the article. Instead, I am requesting that others be able to edit the talk page and the article. Carl (talk) 20:33, 2 June 2016 (UTC)
Latest comment: 8 years ago3 comments3 people in discussion
This page has been semiprotected for a few months due to persistent edit requests from unregistered (IP) editors. If the subject of a biographical article wants to provide feedback or corrections, the correct routes are laid out at WP:BIOSELF inside the biographies of living people policy. In particular, the option to contact the Wikimedia Foundation directly is available. — Carl (CBM · talk) 01:56, 23 October 2015 (UTC)
It says on this page that Editing of this page by new or unregistered users is currently disabled until February 27, 2017.Carl (talk) 20:15, 18 June 2016 (UTC)
Though having said that sadly the article is largely unintelligible to the layman sentences such as this "his work has been in "inconsistency robustness", which aims to provide practical rigorous foundations for systems dealing with pervasively inconsistent information." mean nothing to me! Theroadislong (talk) 15:39, 18 June 2016 (UTC)
@Prof. Carl Hewitt: as you self-identify as the subject of the article, you should not be editing it anyway. By all means bring up errors and violations of WP:BLP here, but that's about as far as you should go. Concur with not removing semi-protection, seems necessary as far as I can tell. Mjroots (talk) 20:29, 18 June 2016 (UTC)
I peeked through the revision history of Wikipedia:Requests for page protection, it doesn't quite seem it was ignored, though the request has since been archived and perhaps you weren't able to see the final result of that request before it was archived. This is how it appeared just before it was archived. Also note that the protection this article is currently under does not restrict what most people on Wikipedia would consider "ordinary editors" from editing, it really only prohibits unregistered or newly registered accounts from editing. Cannolis (talk) 00:47, 19 June 2016 (UTC)
Thanks for the helpful information.
If the lock on the article was removed, so that ordinary editors could edit, it would probably be possible to get some additional qualified editors to contribute. Otherwise, it may be necessary to wait till next year when the lock expires. At this point, the lock mainly serves to keep the article obsolete. Carl (talk) 09:18, 19 June 2016 (UTC)
It's not clear what you mean by "ordinary" editors? Anyone can edit this article if they have an account with sufficient edits. Theroadislong (talk) 09:25, 19 June 2016 (UTC)
Wikipedia used to advertise "anyone can edit an article." But there is a lock on this one that doesn't expire till next year. Carl (talk) 09:40, 19 June 2016 (UTC)
Excuses can be made for the current locks against editing. But it should be recognized that locks and their associated administrative machinery are symptoms of underlying social and organizational dysfunction. Carl (talk) 20:50, 26 June 2016 (UTC)
Previous involvement of various editors with the subject of the article
Latest comment: 8 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Various editors of this talk page and the article have had previous involvement with the subject of the article.
Would any of them like to declare their previous involvement in the connected contributor box? Presumably the same Wikipedia policies apply to these other editors with undeclared previous involvement that may entail conflicts of interest.
For my own part, I don't see any necessary conflict of interest on my own part although, of course, I do have a connection with the subject of the article. My interest is that that article be as accurate as possible. Unfortunately, the current article is very inaccurate. I have made a number of requests for improvement at User:Prof. Carl Hewitt/EditRequestsForArticleCarlHewitt
Not done I don't see how this is "inappropriate" or "disrespectful" - and we don't seem to have any other copyright-free photos. Arjayay (talk) 06:59, 16 May 2014 (UTC)
Not done: There are no other copyright free images to replace the present image of the subject. If you have some better copyright free images of Hewitt, please upload them on Commons and re-open the request. Thank you! Anupmehra -Let's talk! 06:19, 18 May 2014 (UTC)
Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format. Anupmehra -Let's talk! 06:21, 18 May 2014 (UTC)
Not done "I heard that .. " is not what we would consider a reliable source. Please stop reactivating the ESP request until you have reached consensus. Arjayay (talk) 15:18, 30 May 2014 (UTC)
Not done: requests for decreases to the page protection level should be directed to the protecting admin or to Wikipedia:Requests for page protection if the protecting admin is not active or has declined the request. Cannolis (talk) 17:53, 18 June 2016 (UTC)
