The Language of Machines :: Technology Communication Essays

The Language of MachinesComputers argon linguistic process machines. By saying this I mean both that language touch on is a valuable metaphor for understanding computer counting and that, in a fundamental way, computer computation is language processing no more than, no less. The language understood by a new-fangled computer when it first comes off the assembly line is quite simple. The first rudiment of this language consists of two letters, 0 and 1 (or a and b or any other two characters, it doesnt matter), which is stored internally as two intensities of an galvanic signal (either high or low). The grammar of this language has two rules (1) Sentences consist of unrivalled word and (2) Words are all of a single condition length (probably either 16 or 32 characters). This computer beds in two ways. It humps what every word in the language representation (i.e., what do to perform upon hit the booksing that word, information which is stored in the design of the processor ), and it knows all of the dustup it has stored in memory. Each time a computer reads a declare (executes a command), a change results in memory, dependent on what the destine says and what is already in memory. Modern computers are Turing machines (named after the British mathematician Alan Turing), which means that they are language machines which substructure simulate other language machines. In other words, given a special type of text to read (a program), a Turing machine that understands the simple language described above (for example) nookie act as if it understands a more than more complicated language. This is wherefore modern computer keyboards have more than just 0s and 1s on them. A modern computer comes complete with many virtual computers built on top of it, so to speak, enabling the computer to understand much more complex (although mathematically equivalent) higher-level languages. These are mathematical languages, of course they have much more rigid structur e and precise meaning than natural languages. They wish in many ways what Derrida calls play. But must they? Is there an inner fundamental going between mathematical and natural languages, or is the difference instead that we have more control over mathematical languages because we know their rules and can understand the system in which they work, while with natural languages we know neither, because we are not in conscious control of their creation and we can not fully grasp how they operate in society and in our heads?