On Thu, 18 May 1995, Michael McMaster wrote:
[ ...lots of good stuff snipped, down to Mike's reference to a suggestion
of Francisco Varela... ]
> Information doesn't "travel" and it isn't "sitting in front of us" in
> any way. Our senses receive a perturbation (a "poke") and the
We may not be "trapped" in this, but it certainly is pervasive. How
pervasive? In 1977 I learned assembly language for the first time.
Single words, representing individual machine instructions for the Z80
microprocessor. I learned to use instructions such as "load" and "store"
and "move". It wasn't until many years later that I saw a discrepancy
between the model implied in this terminology and the realities of digital
data. The reality is that down at the level of CPU registers -- and any
such hardware -- data never simply "moves". It duplicates.
Mastering assembly language requires, among other things, overcoming its
own implicit models: you have to deconstruct it to become fluent.
The image of the standing wave is not just picturesque and vivid: it is
sober truth.
--
Regards
Jim Michmerhuizen
jamzen@world.std.com
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