Ah, this? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11945722

Super interesting! It's like, data, without an interpreter, has no meaning. We rely super heavily on humans as general purpose interpreters, and when we design computers, we make sure as much of the meaning as possible is implicit.

Rich was saying that the interpreter is secondary, which is only true if data serves a single purpose. Alan is getting at the idea that data could serve every purpose if only the interpreter wasn't implicit. If the concept of "data" referred to both the value and the meaning, the language and how to interpret it.

But, from a reddit comment: An interpreter doesn't magically give meaning to data, since the interpreter has to translate to something, and that something has to be written by a program that understands both the from and to sides of the conversation.

The point of dit is to literally be that universal language. Yes, you do need both sides to explicitly lay out what they main, both to convey and understand the meaning. The difference is that the number of connections is unlimited. You need a human for that critical first step, but then the machine can speak "dit" language to any other machine that speaks dit. Rich couldn't conceive of the idea that dit could be real. I think it can. I think we can make Licklider's vision, data and programs that can move around without respect to the original developers intentions because they all speak dit.

Thank you for sharing, super interesting!

This reminds me of a discussion between Alan Kay and Rich Hickey on role of "data" that occurred right here on HN[1]. The TLDR (though the thread is very worth reading, IMO):

Alan Kay argues that bare "data" isn't very meaningful on its own because it leaves the interpretation too open. His view is nicely summarized by the following quote:

> For important negotiations we don't send telegrams, we send ambassadors.

Rich Hickey argues that bare "data" is a fundamental primitive that, while leaving open the possibility of misinterpretation, leaves open the possibility of re-interpretation in multiple contexts. This is the strongest quote I took away from his POV:

> None of the inputs to our sensory systems are accompanied by explanations of their meaning.

Based on your above post, it looks like you're strongly in Alan Kay's camp, which may also explain (in part) your experience struggling with Clojure's approach.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11945722

Alan Kay asks, “ What if "data" is a really bad idea?” Rich Hickey responds.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11945722

(Thread is from 2016; I first saw it much later.)

I'm not sure that objects are data, depending on how data is defined, and I'd like to link to a very interesting discussion between Alan Kay, one of the creator of Smalltalk and Rich Hickey creator of Clojure (a lisp), discussing between themselves the merits of data and the meaning of data: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11945722

Can't read it, so I'll link to this HN thread[0] from 2016 where Alan Kay and Rich Hickey talk about whether "'data' is a bad idea," which is probably more worth the readers' time.

edit: actually, this[1] appears to be a reprint which isn't paywalled. The author seems to be playing a lot of semantic games and betting the question - "data" doesn't exist because the word is a general term that doesn't describe one specific thing, the value is in the social graph therefore data has no value, it's already everywhere so no one can "own" it, all of the arguments around AI and data are ridiculous, QED. All they've done is demonstrate the strawman definitions they use don't apply to the real world.

But "data" clearly does exist, it can be owned (ex: SSN, bank account data, IP, etc.) and it obviously has value. You can't just nullify the ethical and legal issues around AI by saying "what do words even mean anyway?"

[0]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11945722

[1]https://www.ben-evans.com/benedictevans/2022/5/27/theres-no-...

Thread between Rich Hickey and Alan Kay about 'Data'.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11945722

I'm on my phone, hopefully that's the correct link.