Computer Science which is regarded by cyberneticians as a part of their multidisciplinary field has its foundations challenged and its basic ideas and concepts questioned by the author of this book. Karl M. Fant in his short thesis suggests that basing computer science on mathematical concepts is unsafe. Computer science, he believes, involves the expression of processes independently of which particular process is being expressed. He argues that mathematics on the other hand is concerned with particular processes, with non‐reference to how those processes may be expressed. He claims that as a result of the original mathematical linkage we see computer science inevitably as connected to the idea that it consists of external mediated sequential processes.
The book is worth reading if only to learn of an uncommon viewpoint being expressed in such a challenging way. Some of the basic concepts of the subject are attacked in what has to be said, often without the clarity the author's ideas deserve. Some reviews have written it off as a “complex and theoretical” book. Karl Fants text is certainly meant to be thought‐provoking and should be of importance to those who have debated as to what the subject really is about.
Editor note
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