Richard Shoup publications

Here are some papers and talks of mine on various subjects.

Reconfigurable Computing and Field Programmable Gate Arrays

Shoup, R., "Reconfigurable Systems, New Tools and New Math", ERSA'04 - Int’l Conf on Engineering of Reconfigurable Systems and Algorithms, Las Vegas, June 2004. Slides for invited keynote, argues for formal methods and new mathematics throughout hardware and software design.

---, "Not much has changed in computing in the last 50 years...", Foreword to Field-Programmable Gate Arrays, John V. Oldfield and Richard C. Dorf, Wiley-Interscience, 1994. A rant about how we're still computing like Von Neumann, but with true reconfigurable computing, the computer could be the computation desired at each moment.

---, "Parameterized Convolution Filtering in a Field Programmable Gate Array ", FPGA '93 Conference, 1993.

---, "Real-Time Image Manipulation Using Soft Hardware", IEEE SMC '93, Conference on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics, IEEE Press, 1993.

---, "Programmable Cellular Logic", Proc. 1971 IEEE International Computer Society Conference, September 1971. A summary of my Ph. D. thesis "Programmable Cellular Logic Arrays", Carnegie Mellon University Computer Science Dept., Pittsburgh, March 1970, thesis advisor Gordon Bell.

---, "Programmable Cellular Logic Arrays", Carnegie Mellon University Computer Science Dept., Pittsburgh, March 1970. The thesis itself.

Title Page, Table of Contents, Lists of Figures [PDF 0.4MB]
Chp 1 - Introduction [PDF 2.1MB]
Chp 2 - Assumptions and preliminary topics [PDF 1.4MB]
Chp 3 - Low-generality arrays [PDF 2.5MB]
Chp 4 - High-generality arrays [PDF 4.1MB]
Chp 5 - Conclusions and further research, References [PDF 1.1MB]
Complete document [PDF 11.6MB]

Physics, Anomalies, Randomness, Consciousness, etc

Shoup, R., "Consciousness, Physics, and Computer Science", presented at the Society for Scientific Exploration conference, Michigan State University, May 2007. Consciousness and quantum measurement, self-reference and paradox, Godel, the Self.

Shoup, R., "Physics without Causality - Theory and Evidence", presented at and forthcoming in Frontiers of Time: Retrocausation -- Experiment and Theory, D. P. Sheehan editor, AIP Conference Proceedings, 87th Meeting of the AAAS Pacific Division, University of San Diego, June 2006. Theory and evidence about backwards-in-time phenomena in physics.

Nelson, R.D., Radin, D.I., Shoup, R., and Bancel, P.A., " Correlations of Continuous Random Data with Major World Events", Foundations of Physics Letters, vol. 15, no. 6, December 2002. Behavior of random number generators on Sep. 11, 2001.

Shoup, R., "Anomalies and Constraints - Can clairvoyance, precognition and psychokinesis be accommodated within known physics?", Journal of Scientific Exploration, vol. 16, no. 1, Spring 2002, pp. 3-18. This paper is about physics as relations, causality (influence) flowing both forward and backward in time, and how this might explain certain (well-confirmed, but poorly understood) physical phenomena often called "psi". Also discusses the important connection to EPR phenomena in quantum physics.

Shoup, R., and Etter, T., " Link Theory - From Computation to Quantum Physics, Part I: the Basics", Alternative Natural Philosophy Assoc. Conference, 1998. An introduction to Link Theory, a simple but powerful table-based relational calculus.

Etter, T., and Shoup, R., " Link Theory - From Computation to Quantum Physics, Part II: the Miracle", Alternative Natural Philosophy Assoc. Conference, 1998. Further discussion of Link Theory showing how the core of quantum mechanics -- including the non-existent "miracle" of wave function collapse -- can be seen as a derivation of pure mathematics having no necessary basis in physical reality at all.

Shoup, R., "Space, Time, Logic, and Things", PhysComp '94, Workshop on Physics and Computation, IEEE Press, 1995. How the fundamental idea of a Distinction (see Physcomp '92 as well) can be seen as the origin of Space and Time, and the ordinary notion of Things.

---, "A Complex Logic for Computation with Simple Interpretations for Physics", PhysComp '92, Workshop on Physics and Computation, IEEE Press, 1993. My first paper on Boundary Math (see the book Laws of Form and www.lawsofform.org) as the basis of both logic and at least some of physics. The infamous Sqrt(NOT) is here (the simplest quantum operation), along with several speculations, some of which I now think are wrong.

---, "Constructive Physics or There's Only One Way to Build a Universe", ANPA '96 Conference, 1996. Slides from a talk about Boundary Math and Physics showing how the basic Distinction generates logic, how self-reference generates Time, and how we might think about a Constructive (rather than Reductive) approach to developing the ultimate unified theory of everything.

---, "Anomalous Phenomena, Physics, and Computer Science" , Soc. Sci. Expl. Conference, 1997. Slides from a talk relating anomalous (psi) phenomena, some myths in both science and parascience, and some attempts at new theory using Boundary Math and Link Theory.

---, and Etter, T., "Quantum Weirdness", 1999. Slides from a talk by Tom and me about why quantum physics isn't really so weird after all, and some examples of quantum phenomena easily modelled in Link Theory.

---, "Link Theory and Psi - Clairvoyance, Precognition, and PK without Rewriting Physics?", Boundary Institute, 2000. Earlier version of "Anomalies & Constraints" paper.

Boundary Math, Paradoxes

Shoup, R., "Much Ado About Nothing or Nothing Up My Sleeve", ANPA West '97 Conference, 1997. Slides from my talk on Nothing (the Void) as a proper starting place for logic and physics, relating Boundary Math and some Link Theory examples.

---, "Simple Logic for Computation - Why Paradoxes are Unavoidable and Useful", Paracon '97 Conference on Paraconsistency, 1997. Slides for my talk at the Paraconsistency conference showing (unavoidable) self-reference as the source of paradox, and how a hierarchy of logic "values" can easily deal with it.

---, "Things Ain't What They Used To Be - On Paradox and the Nature of Time", ANPA West '96 Conference, 1996. Slides from a talk about paradoxes in logic and in circuits, the generation of Time, and speculations about the relevance of self-reference to Consciousness and Artificial Intelligence.

---, "The Whole Story", Interval Research, 1998. Slides from a talk (given publicly in various forms) tracing a tenuous but plausible path from the Void/Nothing through logic and computing all the way to quantum physics.

Computer Graphics, Paint Systems

Shoup, R., "SuperPaint: An Early Frame Buffer Graphics System", IEEE Annals of the History of Computing, Vol. 23, No. 2, April-June 2001, pp. 32-37. My video-compatible frame buffer and paint and animation program built at Xerox PARC in the 1970s.

---, "Menu-Driven User Interfaces for Videographics", Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers 17th Television Conference, San Francisco, February 1983. Published in SMPTE Journal and SMPTE Video Pictures of the Future, June 1983.

---, "Simple Animation by Changing Color Definitions" ("Color Table Animation"), Proc. ACM Siggraph 1979 Conference on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques, Chicago, August 1979.

---, "Some Experiments in Television Graphics and Animation Using a Digital Image Memory", SMPTE 13th Television Conference, San Francisco, February 1979. Published in SMPTE Digital Video II and reprinted in Datamation magazine, May 1979.

---, "Towards a Unified Approach to 2-D Picture Manipulation", Proc. ACM Siggraph 1977 Conference on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques, San Jose, July 1977.

---, "Some Quantization Effects in Digitally-Generated Pictures", Society for Information Display Symposium Digest, May 1973. My first paper on the "jaggies" (and maybe the first on this subject), now called anti-aliasing.

Artificial Intelligence, etc.

Reitman, W. R., Grove, R. B., and Shoup, R., "ARGUS - An Information-Processing Model of Thinking", Behavioral Science, vol. 9, April 1964. Reprinted in Thinking and Reasoning, Penguin Modern Psychology series, 1965. My first published paper, about a simulated neural net model of cognition, built as a summer employee at CMU with psychologist Walter Reitman.