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On life and language
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Life is about expectations, hence about disappointment.
Expectations tend to remain unfulfilled. Stril has probably
already broken your expectations by its extremely limited
mathematical capabilities. It is a common view that computing
is reducible to mathematics. Such a view does, however, not bear
closer scrutiny. A number is merely a number. You can add to it,
subtract from it, divide it and multiply it, but it stays
a number. If computing could be reduced to simple mathematics,
computers would only be able to handle numbers.
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It is often claimed that the start of computing goes
back to the 1840s. Lord Babbage and Ada Louisa Lovelace (A.L.L.)
experimented with a mechanical symbolic computer. He was
the designer, and she was the programmer. Cylinders constituted
the core of the machine. The cylinders and their positions
could represent anything, or almost anything - more about
that later, not just numbers. The two inventors
deserve credit for the machine, but the concept is a rather
old one. All cultures use symbols extensively, and all symbols are
multivalent. They can, in other words, have a plethora of
meanings and may represent almost anything. The Christian cross can, 
for example, represent 
eternal life, but equally well suffering, execution, death,
salvation and hope.
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Modern computers are electrical, not mechanical, and they
rely more on mathematics than the machine from the 1840s.
Computers count in binary numbers. The smallest unit is a bit.
A bit can only hold two values, either 0 or 1 and never both
at the same time. Eight bits combine into a byte: 00000000.
"1" in the bit to the far right means one. If we move one place
to the left, it means 2. If we proceed even further to the left,
it means 4 and so on. A single byte can hold values between
0 and 255. Computers contain larger units than bytes,
but they all hold a limited number of bits, so the same 
principles apply. Numbers are important in computers, but
there is a very important difference between a handwritten
number and a number inside a computer. In handwriting,
a number may be increased indefinitely. It is always possible
to make it longer. Inside a computer, it has to stay within
the confines of a container. 
Since the range of possible numbers inside a container
is limited, it is possible
to let each number represent a unique meaning.
The number "73" is equivalent to an uppercase "I" which in
turn may represent a certain sound or a
personal pronoun in English. A handwritten number is merely 
a sign. It has a single meaning.
A number inside a computer is a symbol, in other words a
multivalent sign. It is the combination of numbers and
containers that makes it possible for computers to
transcend simple mathematics. The combination of containers
and content is not limited to computers. It is also a central
feature of human languages. In English grammar, a predicator
has to include a verb, but not a noun. The predicator is a container 
that imposes limits on its contents. This is also a necessary feature.
If something can mean anything, it means nothing. That is a
dogma of linguistic philosophy.
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The separation of container and content is at the very
heart of computing. It allows us to choose an action
for a container regardless of its contents, at the same
time basing our decisions on what it contains. We can
for example choose to print, store or delete containers
where the contents start with the letter "A". We may change 
what a container contains or points
to at any time. That is also a feature of any language.
"He" can point to Tom, but equally well to Ralph or Dan.
Signs are arbitrary. They have the meanings we give them.
That is another dogma of linguistic philosophy.
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The system of binary numbers, bits and bytes is central to
decision making within a computer. At bit level, only two
options, 0 and 1, are available, and they are mutually
exclusive. With larger containers, the number of options
increase, but the principle is still the same. For a single
container, it is only possible to choose a single number
at any given time. Modern computer programs may use several
threads simultaneously. They can, in other words, perform
several calculations in parallel, but it is still true that
a computer never can base a decision on a calculation
that has not been completed yet. Some scholars, Claude
Levi-Straus among them, have claimed that human beings also 
think in binary oppositions: You cannot have your cake
and eat it. Linguistically, it is easy to argue against
such a view. Human languages contain a lot of reservations,
such as "partly", "to a certain degree" and so on, but
logic and practical considerations may give us a different
perspective. You cannot decide how you want to travel
from A to B before you have decided to travel from A to B.
You can choose to go by car, and you can choose to go
by plane, but you cannot do both simultaneously. Making
decisions and enabling computers to make decisions of
their own is very important in programming languages,
but decisions play an equally important part in human
languages. How we express ourselves is likely to
influence perceptions and ultimately actions, but statements
can also create new realities: I hereby declare you man
and wife.
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Human beings and computers tend to be rather impatient.
Instead of basing their decisions upon the verified results
of calculations, they often base their decisions upon
the expected outcome of those calculations. Computer
programming and life is about getting your expectations
right. Disappointment usually occurs when we expect
what we want to happen rather than what is likely to
happen. Bad things are, of course, likely to happen. 
Our ability to make our wishes come true depends on
our ability to expect bad things and navigate around
them.
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I do not know if human languages were likely to be
based on computing, but the similarities speak for
themselves. You may object that computer languages 
are more likely to be based on human languages, but
do you seriously think that God wrote by hand? Even if
he did, he was probably disappointed by unfulfilled
expectations and wishes that did not come true. At the
moment I feel that I am better off than God, but that
is merely because I have the good sense to wish for
things that I might manage to achieve. Presently,
I think that Stril is what I wished it to be, but I 
still have the good sense to expect disappointment.
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