On 21 Dec 2022, at 16:20, Jono <jonathan.m.spring@gmail.com> wrote:

On 12/21/22 09:47, Andrew McConachie wrote:
Dear SSAC Members,
Warren asked on the last call for some philosophical text on naming.
I think Data and Reality by William Kent is a good start for this. Below are links to the 2nd edition. I have the 3rd edition in paperback, but the only difference is some commentary on the text. Other than that the 2nd and 3rd edition are the same. So if you want to buy it I would buy the 3rd edition from 2012.
Chapter 3 on Naming is the most relevant for us.
<https://cmpct.info/~calvin/Papers/Data%20and%20Reality.pdf <https://cmpct.info/~calvin/Papers/Data and Reality.pdf>>
<https://raw.githubusercontent.com/jhulick/bookstuff/master/Data%20and%20Reality.pdf <https://raw.githubusercontent.com/jhulick/bookstuff/master/Data and Reality.pdf>>

Sorry I wasn't on the call. Trying to gather a bit of context, if you want to pick up the modern philosophy of language debate about this, it's probably Wittgenstein's blue and brown books, specifically the brown book on language games.
pg 103 of this summary book has a quick summary
https://books.google.com/books?id=UBy9DwAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

That may be too abstract. But Wittgenstein, Goedel, and Turing were all contemporaries with overlapping interests. So I do see connection. I'm sure Andrew avoided going back this far for good reason, but hopefully it is helpful to someone.

Hey Jono,

I was looking for more basic text about naming that uses simple text that explains general issues around naming in computing. We were struggling to come up with useful words on this last meeting. Data and Reality is written for people who work with relational databases, but most of it transfers well to the DNS as well.

On the topic of the philosophy of language, it would be fun to argue with you in person about this topic. Most of my thinking on the topic has been influenced by contemporary embodied cognitive theory from people like Lakoff, Johnson, Bergen, etc. But I don’t think we need to go there for this work.

—Andrew