Francis Hsu: "Plato as Software Designer"

Human language is the first software. Software began when humans first used their minds and language to express themselves and communicate. This natural software, however, is still little understood. This essay establishes that the abstractions which human language allows enabled Plato to pose a question which still haunts us today.

When Plato spoke of Ideal Types [1] he was using language to try to understand the relations between the real (or concrete) and the ideal (or abstract). In doing so, he was exploring how our minds work, even if that was not his intention. His Ideal Types has perplexed thinkers over 2,500 years: they have argued about what Plato believed, what he was trying to do, and whether his notion is true or not. Few human conceptions have had such longevity — and that alone is sufficient for us to re-consider it in our computer-driven age. Recently, Plato was even blamed for fostering extremism in religions [2] because of this notion of Ideal Types.

I believe Plato's Ideal Types helps explain not only how our minds work, but perhaps also how computer software should work. (Via ACM Ubiquity)