Re: VMs: Musings, was RE: Cicco Simonetta etc...

[Nick Pelling <incoming@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Rene,

At 08:29 23/04/2003 -0700, Rene Z wrote:
> A bit off-topic: this is one of my fundamental
> questions about our odd 'hobby':
>
> 1) If one day someone announced that he solved it
>    and it is indeed true, should I (we) be
>    happy?

I doubt a solution would answer every question we have about the VMS... in 
fact, I wouldn't be entirely surprised if it triggered an entirely new set 
of questions. :-)

> 2) If one day I found the solution, how would
>    I bring it?

Announce a time and a place & ask everyone else to bring their own pizza. :-)

> 3) If one day I (or whoever goes to Sartirana :-)
>    found a document used by the VMs writer with
>    the explanation how he did it (dictionary or
>    encoding rules or whatever), would it feel
>    like cheeting?

IIRC, according to Gibbons et al (1994), there are two types of knowledge:-
"Type I knowledge" - academic, constructive, incremental, 
intra-disciplinary, body, means-driven.
"Type II knowledge" - problem-oriented, knowledge acquired for a task, 
inter-disciplinary, ends-driven.

By this framework, I'm definitely a Type II knowledge person - for me, the 
VMS is a problem for which I have been acquiring (largely art-historical) 
knowledge. For Type I knowledge people, this "anything goes" approach can 
seem a bit like cheating... but both types of knowledge have their time and 
place. :-)

Cheers, .....Nick Pelling..... 


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