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SUMMARY:Hacks and explanations via program execution - Andre Curtis-Trudel
  (University of Cincinnati)
DTSTART:20251015T120000Z
DTEND:20251015T133000Z
UID:TALK238336@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Matt Farr
DESCRIPTION:This talk is about hacks – seemingly ad hoc\, unprincipled b
 its of code used to make a program run more efficiently\, or\, in some cas
 es\, simply run at all. Hacks are exceedingly common\, but their philosoph
 ical significance has not been fully appreciated. First\, using an infamou
 s hack for computing fast inverse square roots as a motivating example\, I
  sketch an account of what it is to explain how hacked programs work. On t
 his account\, we cannot explain how a hacked program works without referen
 ce to facts about a system's computational architecture and notation. Then
 \, I suggest that this has ramifications for accounts of computational exp
 lanation that foreground a system's abstract causal structure or its seman
 tic properties. The ramification is that these accounts are in trouble.
LOCATION:Seminar Room 2\, Department of History and Philosophy of Science
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