Well, this is what all the fuss is about! How does text (meaningless and largely random combination of dots and lines) is being understood by compiler (whatever this devil is), what is this "something" and how does processor (physical creation, largely random combination of Mendeleyev table elements) puts it together into something useful again.Halc wrote:Text entered into a computer might be recognizable by some program (say the compiler), but the computer itself has no idea what the text means. The compiler translates that text into something that the processor (which is effectively 'the computer') actually does understand.
Correct, but a compiler doesn't do these parts. Somebody wrote a program (or several of them that interact actually) that are invoked by a request to print something. The compiler example I posted managed to print "hello world" in just 2 machine instructions. The job of the compiler is complete after that fairly trivial effort.The friend's reply to Scott wrote:Ah, but it is. In machine code, your instruction set mostly consist of doing stuff to memory or jumping to another instruction. Even a simple high level programming code "echo "Hello world."" has so many things that the processor does not understand or even care about. For the computer to understand the task of displaying "Hello world" on display, it's broken down to many simple instructions that have very little to do with displaying stuff on screen.
have in mind folks that most of debates in forums like this one are based on a premonition that "language" or "mind" are something very different to physics and chemistry. Language, whatever it is,is physical and chemical. It is produced by our mouths and hands. And understood by our ears and brains.]Human reliance on inefficient verbal language instead of more efficient chemical signals
Now, forums like this one are metaphysically-bent and they will never abandon the idea that the separation between mind and body is merely cultural (and linguistic - but this requires deeper debate) choice.
Now, I have abandoned this dualism long time ago. So, I'm asking again, without the whole web connection between minds, bodies, computers, humans, languages etc. Let's assume for a moment that every piece of the puzzle in here is physical and computable. Human, compiler, computer, language. We are all part of the Mendeleyev table.
Now, if we are capable of understanding how helium works when in meets oxygen, why it gets so difficult when we try to understand how compilers, languages, humans, computers work together, when they meet?