Meta-Font, Metamathematics, and Metaphysics: Comments on Donald Knuth's Article (16:1)

Abstract

It is argued that readers are likely to carry away from Donald Knuth’s article "The Concept of a Meta-Font" a falsely optimistic view of the extent to which the design of typefaces and letterforms can be mechanized through an approach depending on describing letterforms by specifying the setting of a large number of parameters. Through a comparison to mathematical logic, is it argued that no such set of parameters can capture the essence of any semantic category. Some different way of thinking about the problem of the "spirit" residing behind any letterforms are suggested, connecting to current research issues in the field of artificial intelligence.