AKMA’s Random Thoughts

Amen, brother. I don't think I'm a postmodernist (although I may be a poststructuralist), but the way postmodernism has become the Academic Boogyman gets on my last nerve. Bunch of lousy reductionists, all of them. ;)

Prof. Adam,

I?m not trying to pick a fight--I?m just trying to let you see things from the opposing side (which I represent).

As an anti-postmodernist (to adopt the label used in one of the Chalice Press volumes you edited), I think I can understand how you feel about ?shoddy denunciations?, but, if I do, that is because I have had my fill of postmodernists? ?shoddy denunciations? of realistic philosophy. Most postmodernist texts strongly insinuate that you are on a fool?s errand if you try to hang on to Enlightenment thinking (which, in more cases than postmodernists are willing to admit, is really thinking that is much older than the Enlightenment).

I?m not sure which postmodernist arguments are the ones that ?impress? you, but let me mention three rather prominent postmodernist arguments that contribute greatly to the impression that postmodernist thinking represents the ramblings of ?a bunch of dunderheads?: (1) the conceit that, since objectivity is ultimately unachievable, it?s not a legitimate goal (an argument which, as I wrote in *CBQ* 62 [2000] 250-263, is rather like saying that one should not use motor oil because a 100% frictionless automobile engine is an impossible ideal); (2) arguments for the subjectivity (or, better, perspectivity) of *truth*, based on the observable perspectivity of *knowledge* (an argument that trades purely on the widespread but perverse misuse of the term ?epistemology? in discussions about *alethiology* proper); and (3) the argument from analogy with the apparent indeterminism of quantum theory (an argument that not only fails to explain what physics has to do with semantics, but also fails to understand that, while quantum phenomena appear to be *singly* indeterminant, the mathematicalization that relates these phenomena to classical physics represents an index of determinism that is just as originary to physical existence as electron spins themselves). All three of these arguments are representative of postmodernist writing (although the third argument appears to possess a stronger presence in oral than in written tradition), and all three are ridiculous shams of logical necessity. So, you see, while you disagree sharply with the words ?it is hard to give an overview of the major postmodernist tenets without seeming to fall into parody,? I identify with those words, and it is a careful schematic consideration of the most common postmodernist arguments out there that leads me to that opinion.

Again, I?m not trying to pick a fight (although I would appreciate any feedback, no matter what your tone), so let me offer some advice. If postmodernists want to be taken more seriously, they need to root out flawed postmodernist arguments like those listed above. They also need to stop using the label ?Enlightenment thinking? as an argument against opposing positions (in lieu of giving a sustained argument against the logic of those positions), and they need to do more to promote the art of schematic thinking.

I hope this helps.

John C. Poirier
Middletown, Ohio

- man, I thought post-modernism was just a better way to understand Christ, all this quantum physics stuff is kind of dissapointing.

Since the Heap has no definite rules as to where it will create space for you, there must be some way of figuring out where your new space is. And the answer is, simply enough, addressing. When you create new space in the heap to hold your data, you get back an address that tells you where your new space is, so your bits can move in. This address is called a Pointer, and it's really just a hexadecimal number that points to a location in the heap. Since it's really just a number, it can be stored quite nicely into a variable.

We can see an example of this in our code we've written so far. In each function's block, we declare variables that hold our data. When each function ends, the variables within are disposed of, and the space they were using is given back to the computer to use. The variables live in the blocks of conditionals and loops we write, but they don't cascade into functions we call, because those aren't sub-blocks, but different sections of code entirely. Every variable we've written has a well-defined lifetime of one function.

For this program, it was a bit of overkill. It's a lot of overkill, actually. There's usually no need to store integers in the Heap, unless you're making a whole lot of them. But even in this simpler form, it gives us a little bit more flexibility than we had before, in that we can create and destroy variables as we need, without having to worry about the Stack. It also demonstrates a new variable type, the pointer, which you will use extensively throughout your programming. And it is a pattern that is ubiquitous in Cocoa, so it is a pattern you will need to understand, even though Cocoa makes it much more transparent than it is here.

The Stack is just what it sounds like: a tower of things that starts at the bottom and builds upward as it goes. In our case, the things in the stack are called "Stack Frames" or just "frames". We start with one stack frame at the very bottom, and we build up from there.

When the machine compiles your code, however, it does a little bit of translation. At run time, the computer sees nothing but 1s and 0s, which is all the computer ever sees: a continuous string of binary numbers that it can interpret in various ways.

The most basic duality that exists with variables is how the programmer sees them in a totally different way than the computer does. When you're typing away in Project Builder, your variables are normal words smashed together, like software titles from the 80s. You deal with them on this level, moving them around and passing them back and forth.