Thanks to both Deepak and J.D. for following up on my queries about "rethinking computer science education." I've also continued to puzzle over Peter's observation, a few weeks ago, that the question of "whether an attribute is a property of reality or a story of reality" was "irrelevant" to his key point: "I really don't care if particular features are characteristic of reality, or stories descriptive of it."

I got some help with this puzzle, while reading some of the work of Richard Rorty this week. In A Pragmatist View of Contemporary Analytic Philosophy, Rorty says, "We felt the need for an interpreter...only so long as we thought of natural science as privileged by a special relation to non-human relaity, and of the natural scientist as stepping into the shoes of the priests." His argument--which I find quite compelling--is that "