3 ms·
Is there a logical concept or some sort of 'phrase' that describes the 'inside and outside of box' problem? My vocabulary is lacking. In computing, we know qui
by esoteric_nonces 10y ago
Is there a logical concept or some sort of 'phrase' that describes the 'inside and outside of box' problem? My vocabulary is lacking.
In computing, we know quite well that a system's inputs and outputs don't have to be coupled as well as they seem.
I can produce a program '/bin/sha256sum' which drops the sha256sum of a file onto stdout, unless said file is a JPEG image depicting a Shiba Inu, in which case it puts 'such file'.
In computing this is really kind of an obvious result. If we have a debugger or a disassembler we might be able to find that behaviour without actually encountering it. But if it's a HTTP API, we really have no way of knowing what's going to happen.
We can gather lots of empirical evidence, but we have no reason to believe that 5M results or 25M results or 50M results increase our certainty that it 'always does X'. (Simply, it's not provable).
It seems to me to be tautological to say that 'reality may not be what it seems', in that sense, because we know that we cannot be certain that it even acts the same way at t=t and t=t+1.
Even if we found some sort of 'higher state' - if we found the source code to the program that actually runs all there is - what's above that? Turtles all the way down!