I can add blank lines, change variable names, add comments, and yet through all these changes, it is the same program. By your logic, then, none of them can be

I can add blank lines, change variable names, add comments, and yet through all these changes, it is the same program. By your logic, then, none of them can be the "real" program, just as none of the different binaries could be the "real" program. I think that it is better to think of all of these as representations of the same abstract program. The Sieve of Eratosthenes can be implemented in different languages, binary or assembler, high-level or low-level, English or code, but they are all representations of the same abstract program.