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The fact that the program runs, and is an operating system, proves it has meaning. It's not a random collection of scribbles or incoherent scrawls. The comput
by ALittleLight 5y ago
The fact that the program runs, and is an operating system, proves it has meaning. It's not a random collection of scribbles or incoherent scrawls. The computer can run it. We can interact with the program, understand it, and evaluate it. None of that is true with meaningless scribbles on a page.
In my view the TempleOS example is an example of sense versus non-sense. This is the difference between someone explaining that they have to take out their own teeth because they think the CIA hid radios in there and someone just making incoherent sound. The former is crazy, sure, but it's crazy made out of words that convey intent. If a schizophrenic told you they needed to remove their teeth to silence the radios in them you'd have a good guess about what the schizophrenic person was about to do. Again, not true for the person making incoherent noises.
- Brian_K_White 5y agoAnd the crazy scribbles include recognizable human beings. So what? And, again, not binary.
- ALittleLight 5y agoThe "so what" is that I don't expect incoherent gibberish to have similar statistical properties to actual language. If the book is written in a language (or constructed language or cipher) then we have no more reason to expect its author was mad than we have to suspect any random author of any text we can't read is mad. And maybe coherence isn't binary (not that I ever wrote it was) but TempleOS is clearly an example of something that is coherent though done by mentally ill person for an irrational purpose.