Re: Numeric comparison with nil - Math masochists only!!

Xavier Noria wrote:
> On Thu, Dec 30, 2010 at 8:30 PM, Everett L Williams II
> <[e-mail]>  wrote:
>
>    
>> Finite addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division are native
>> functions of all but the simplest computers, whether the computer is
>> self-aware or not, silly as that is to even discuss. What we are talking
>> about here is native instructions as opposed to algorithmic processes. Since
>> I have been programming computers for 44 years, I tend to think that most
>> people, at least in these parts understand the distinction. As they say, if
>> you don't understand it, you can't program it. And, your understanding of it
>> will be what is programmed. Most of us who have been programming for more
>> than five minutes know that we must limit our use of an instruction to the
>> finite limits of the hardware capability. Programmers must constantly be
>> aware that all processes must be bounded, or programs may loop until
>> stopped, a condition not desirable, at least in my experience. There is both
>> a quantitative and a qualitative difference between using the basic
>> capacities of hardware and instruction sets, and overlaying on those extreme
>> sets of logic not amenable to any computation.
>>      
> But don't you realize you are doing an interpretation?
>
> The computer knows *nothing* about numbers. The computer is a physical
> machine, numbers are abstractions *you* are putting onto it.
>
> I could say that for every representable n, any given native 4-bytes
> represent the infinite number ? + n. By definition (? + n) + (? + m) =
> ? + (n + m).
>
> There you have it, infinite quantities dealt with in a "finite" computer.
>
> My ? + 0 is no different than your vanilla 0 for a blank 4-bytes. The
> bytes are just electronics, we are the ones interpreting them in a
> convenient and natural, but also arbitrary manner.
>
>
>    
nihilism and solipsism are not much fun to discuss, even in a philosophy 
forum, one of which this is not. There is a nice one-to-one 
correspondence to a subset of basic math and boolean logic found in the 
data storage, manipulation, and instruction set of all but the most 
trivial modern computer chips. Skip the semantic games and move on.

Everett L.(REett) Williams II