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From: sarge@metapsy.UUCP (Sarge Gerbode)
Newsgroups: comp.ai,talk.philosophy.misc,sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Re: Can Machines Think?
Summary: What is a "program", exactly?
Keywords: Searle Chinese Room Turing test software hardware
Message-ID: <973@metapsy.UUCP>
Date: 26 Dec 89 14:22:30 GMT
References: <83367@linus.UUCP> <1989Dec18.014229.18058@athena.mit.edu> <968@metapsy.UUCP> <1989Dec19.061822.27585@athena.mit.edu>
Reply-To: sarge@metapsy.UUCP (Sarge Gerbode)
Organization: Metapsychology, Woodside, CA
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Distribution:

In article <1989Dec19.061822.27585@athena.mit.edu> crowston@athena.mit.edu
(Kevin Crowston) writes:

>>[After object] code is loaded, there is actually a different
>>physical machine there, just as much as if one had gone out and
>>bought a different machine.

>But even so, the program still exists in both cases, right?

Good question.  What *is* a "program", anyway?  The ascii source
characters, taken as an aggregate?  The machine-language code, as a
sequence of octal or hex characters?  The magnetic patterns on the
disc?  The electronic patterns in RAM when the programis loaded?  Or
is it, as I suspect, the detailed *concept* the programmer had in
mind when he wrote the source code?  Perhaps the program (or, if you
will, the overall algorithm) is a *possibility* that can be
actualized (implemented) in a variety of ways.  This possibility
exists in the mind of a conscious being as the concept called "the
program".  Without the concept, you would not have a "program" but a
mere pattern of electronic whatevers.
-- 
Sarge Gerbode -- UUCP:  pyramid!thirdi!metapsy!sarge
Institute for Research in Metapsychology
431 Burgess Drive; Menlo Park, CA 94025