Lambda the Ultimate

Elephant 2000
started 6/20/2002; 2:59:34 PM - last post 6/21/2002; 10:26:28 AM

John Kozak - Elephant 2000

6/20/2002; 2:59:34 PM (reads: 1775, responses: 1)

I'm surprised I haven't seen this before, given that it's ten years old and by John McCarthy, but anyway:

http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/elephant/elephant.html

is an extraordinary paper - a sketch of a programming language based on speech act theory; quite the most radical thing I've seen in ages - e.g. "programs may not need data structures because they can refer directly to the past", which I see as an attempt to import the metaphysics of deixis into pgmming languages.

It seems to be one of those ideas that are so far out they get left out - or does anyone know of any follow-on work?

claudio - Re: Elephant 2000

6/21/2002; 10:26:28 AM (reads: 916, responses: 0)

I'm not sure if these are related (never heard about this language before), but the AI community have developed some languages (like AgentSpeak(L)) based in mentalistic approachs that have (ou should have) communication based in speech act theory.