Machine Logic and Values as a Self-Generating System

Scientific practice, both in the broad sense and in the specific case of computer science, cannot demonstrate how the constituted logic of a given consistent system translates into an empirically constructed system without the assumption of other conditions which may also be logically constituted through modes of praxis that are already technically available. Computer science is premised on a technically laden life-world and, indeed, on an interpretation of the entire environment as accessible to technical management. In this sense, there is a pre-understanding that allows a given population to regard both science and computer science as “value free”. Yet, it is precisely the technologically interpreted environment that is imbedded in valuations. In this chapter, we explicate: (a) the principles that establish scientific objectivity on the basis of the objectivity of logics; (b) how those logics are connected to the resources of the environment; (c) how the environment itself is technical and valuative; and (d) how a particular modern value context pervades the technical, logical, and scientific enterprises.