Setzer's "laws" and aphorisms

On computers and computing

• With a computer it is possible to produce badly made things (programs, systems) which work.
  Comparison: Try using a power lathe in the same way.

• The development of a well-designed and well-documented system takes 10 time as much time and costs 10 times more.
  Corolary: If a software company honestly participates in a disputation for the development of a system and proposes to develop a well-designed and well-documented system, it's going to lose the disputation.

• The origin of the problems of a program that does not function properly is that it was programmed.
  Corolary: Only use program/application generators.

• In data processing, whenever you re-invent the wheel, it will come out squared.
  Classical examples: The old IBM /360, /370, etc. OSs; MS DOS, Windows; the language C, UML (as far as data modeling is concerned).

• In data processing, if the market likes a product it certainly could be much better at the present state of the art.

• Only idiots need a definition of intelligence.
  Corolary: Computers are idiots.

• A program which simulates some human behaviour is a demonstration that humans do not "function" that way.

• A computer (or any other type of machine) should only replace some human work when this work degrades the worker, and should not replace the work that elevates the human being.
  Restriction: The aforementioned work should only be replaced if the person who is being substituted can exercise some less degrading work.
  Problem: How to correctly characterize "degrading" and "elevating" a human.
  "Education is the activity which mostly elevates the human being" (Ruy Barbosa). Corolary: computers should not replace teachers and professors, not even partially.

• To make a computer compelling, everything must be presented by it as a show or an electronic game.
  (Inspired by "TV has transformed everything in a show" -- Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death)

• Computers induce lack of discipline.
  Comment: It's the worst kind of lack of discipline, the mental one.
  Examples: In general, the way computer programmers work (this can be seen in almost all programs, because they have almost no documentation, or inadequate or obsolete documentation), or as texts are typed into a computer using a text editor (compare with the enormous inner discipline required to write a text by hand without making corrections).

• Artistic activity is the best antidote against "computational thinking"
  Corolary: Every programmer or a person who unfortunately is forced to work with a computer many hours in a row, every day, should practice some artistic activity (see my essay "An antidote against computer thinking").

On science

• Statistics relates to science as surgery to medicine.
  Comment: The former declares the latter bankrupt.

• Darwinism induces people to think that humans are animals; Artificial Intelligence, that humans are machines.
  Comment: It is linguistically wrong to say that humans are machines, because every machine has been designed and constructed by humans (with the eventual help of other machines); on the other hand, no human was designed and constructed by another human. The proper expression is "humans are purely physical systems" (see the CDCS below and my paper on Artificial Intelligence).
  Comment: Humans are humans, animals are animals. The fact that there are some things and functions in common between them does not justify identifying one with the other. This degrades the view one should have of the human being. Nobody calls animals "moving plants", why should humans be called "rational animals"?

• A machine will never have feelings.
  Comment: Every machine is universal; this is absolutely clear with programmable digital machines: anyone may simulate any other one, given enough capacity. All analog machines (as, for instance, refrigerators) are also universal, because their design and construction is the same for the same series of similar ones. On the other hand, feelings are absolutely individual: nobody can feel someone's else's feelings (but may think the same thoughts; this is clear, e.g., in the case of mathematical concepts). See details in my paper on Artificial Intelligence.)

On education

• Teaching is not a science, nor a technique, industry or commerce: it's an art.
  (Inspired by Waldorf Education.)

• A good teacher or professor is the one who is able to instill enthusiasm in his students for the subject matter being taught and, from that enthusiasm, provide for the adequate and necessary development of his students.

On mankind

• The reality of the misery produced by humans is beyond the most pessimistic imagination.

• TV anesthesized boredom.
  (Inspired by Chekhov's "Uncle Vania".)

• Making an unconscious mistake does not degrade a human being; what degrades him/her is not recognizing it and not correcting or compensating for it.

• Any competition is anti-social, because the winner becomes happy at the expense of the loser's frustration.
  Corolary: Sports should be practiced (ideally, each day) without competition. Examples: playing tennis without counting points, games and sets, playing soccer mixing the teams after every goal, practising individual sports, etc.
  Corolary: Competitive games shoud be banished from homes and schools, replaced by cooperative games.
  Comment: It is not necessary to teach a child or adolescent how to be competitive; adult life will teach her/him how to be competitive when (and unfortunately while) this will be needed. (Educating for competition is so much rooted in the USA that I wonder how many Americans will understand these words...)

On spirituality

• The worse kind of materialism is the one that disguises itself as spiritualism.

• Who does not recognize the unique spiritual essence of the human individuality, tends to unduly anthropomorphize.
  Examples: considering that cells and animals "negotiate", calling "memory" the central storage unit of a computer, saying that "a thermostat has beliefs" (John McCarthy), and the worst of all, "Artificial Intelligence" (expression coined also by McCarthy -- see my paper on it).

• The fundamental hypothesis of any religion or religiosity should be that human life has some meaning.
  Corolary: Birth and death, the highest decisive moments in each life, must have a meaning (that is, they are not caused and do not happen by chance).
  Corolary: All life, Earth and the universe, must have a meaning.

• A meaning for life cannot follow from matter, nor does human freedom, dignity, self-consciousness, higher individuality and responsibility.

• The world's biggest prejudice is that there exist only material (physical) processes.
  This is the Central Dogma of Contemporary Science (CDCS).

• Most religious people are in fact materialists.
  
• Examples. Visiting Auschwitz, a religious leader said: "Where was God to permit those horrors to be commited here?" Another religious leader gave a partial, albeit adequate answer: "God was where He should have been: waiting for humans to take some attitude." The latter did not justify why God entrusted responsibility to humans and, even in this case, why He did not interfere. Both showed that they were not understanding what is the divinity's role nowadays -- or have a materialistic view of it.

• Almost every scientist is a materialist.

  Corolaries to the three last "laws":

• The biggest sources of prejudices are the academic, scientific and religious world.
• The majority of universities, research institutions and worship centers are in general museums of prejudices.
  Comentary: Universities generally receive their students, show them during some years a bunch of rusted specialized abstract theories and practices, and believe that they have thus given them a real education whereas, in fact, from a holistic point of view, what happened was a miseducation (highly appreciated by our degenerated societies).

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See also Fang's laws (in Portuguese).

See also the laws of data processing (in Portuguese).