On Thu, Nov 3, 2016 at 10:19 PM, James Salsman jsalsman@gmail.com wrote:
Also I would like to know what "Orwellian philosophy" is http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2FBF01211002
From the paper (you can find download links with minimal effort): "*George
Orwell tells us of a language so crafted as not to allow the speakers to think "bad thoughts", thus preventing them from challenging the totalitarian nightmare of Oceania. This principle, although sinister when applied to human discourse, is quite benign and we argue beneficial when dealing with the design of complex artifacts such as real-time computing systems whose deployment has safety-critical implications.*"
To the extent I understood (which is very limited, I only skimmed it), this is more of a vague philosophical point which in practice boils down to "keep the language simple". The technical part of the paper describes an extension of the classic precondition/postcondition system of program specification which adds timing information. It does not relate in any way to surveillance.
(If you are further interested in Orwell's thoughts about the use of language in politics, Wikipedia has some good articles: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newspeak https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_and_the_English_Language )