[cap-talk] Don't understand capabilities

[Valerio Bellizzomi]

On 28/10/2006, at 14.33, Marcus Brinkmann wrote:

>At Fri, 27 Oct 2006 20:13:42 +0100,
>David Hopwood <david.nospam.hopwood at blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:
>> 
>> Marcus Brinkmann wrote:
>> > At Wed, 25 Oct 2006 11:19:38 -0700,
>> > Jed at Webstart <donnelley1 at webstart.com> wrote:
>> > 
>> >>If we haven't adequately conveyed that message so that somebody can 
>> >>do "much reading" on the capability concept and still not understand 
>> >>it then I think something is seriously wrong with "our" message.
>> > 
>> > Mmmh.  I have a gut feeling here.  Capabilities may be difficult to
>> > understand because they are not "natural", in the sense that they are
>> > not a concept that comes out of human experience.
>> 
>> They are no more or less so than "objects" in the object-oriented
>> programming sense.
>
>Why do you think so?  Certainly, the human mind has a great capacity
>to identify and abstract objects in the real world.  Furthermore,
>"operating on an object" seems also to be a concept inherent to the
>human mind, as the passive voice shows which is part of our language
>(have to check with a linguist if it is universal, but it's hard to
>imagine exceptions).

It is said that the human mind is the most sophisticated computer.
Machines are created by the human mind, certainly we do recognize human
faces at a glance, while computers need a great amount of calculations to
do so.


>
>I don't see how a similar argument could be constructed for
>capabilities.
>
>Thanks,
>Marcus
>
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