On Thursday, May 29, 2003, at 01:51  Uhr, Richard A. O'Keefe wrote:

> Marcel Weiher <marcel at metaobject.com> replied to my message:
> 	> An object can respond to a #mass message, but it can do that as
> 	> often as you please, and it still will NOT have physical mass.
> 	
> 	Really?  All my objects have some representation, be it electrons in a
> 	computer, graphite/ink on paper, etc.  So they all possess mass.
> 	
> No, they don't.  That mass is the mass of the *representation*,
> not the mass of the *object*.
>
> Here's one way you can tell the difference:
>
>     Suppose I do
> 	a := OrderedCollection new.
>     Then no matter how many times I do
> 	a add: Object new.
>     MY COMPUTER DOESN'T GET ANY HEAVIER.

Hi Richard,

THERE IS NO NEED TO SHOUT.  Anyway, the world also didn't get heavier 
when I was "created", yet I have mass.  You are saying the law of 
conservation of mass(/energy) proves there is no mass?  That's an 
interesting philosophical POV, but one that I don't think you will find 
well supported...

Also, since the computer gets warmer, and mass and energy are 
equivalent...

> It follows if it is even meaningful to speak of the mass of an Object
> (which I deny) the mass is always zero.

Nope.  You need representation for information, and representation need 
a minimum amount of energy, which is equivalent to mass.

> Computational objects are made of bits.  It doesn't matter to the 
> object
> whether those bits are represented by charge in transistors, the
> orientation of magnetic bubbles, the magnetisation of little rings
> of ferrite, or even sound pulses in a l o n g tube of mercury.

Yes, but they always have to be represented in some physical form, at 
least as far as physics today can tell us.

If you think this is whacky, think again:  the link between information 
and its minimal physical representation was used a while back to solve 
the paradox of Maxwell's Demon.  So your claims contradict the second 
law of thermodynamics, which I think is not a good debating position to 
be in...

> 	>  I'm not sure whether you are confusing
> 	> *talking about* properties with actually possessing them
> 	> (but no matter how often I _say_ "I have $1000000" it still isn't 
> true)
> 	
> 	That was the funny thing about the new-economy bubble:  there it
> 	was/became true.
> 	
> Hmm.  The only person I ever knew to do something like this _just_ 
> managed
> to stay out of gaol by the skin of his teeth, and was in fact 
> disbarred.

Which only goes to prove that the fact that you cannot do something 
does not prove it cannot be done.  Of course, this follows from simple 
logic, but it is good to get some empirical backup.

> 	to be, pretending and reality can be closely related, or even
> 	very much the same thing.
> 	
> Pretending and SOCIAL reality, yes.
>
> Pretending and PHYSICAL reality, no.

How is the house that I built from millions I acquired not "PHYSICAL"?

>  Stand at the top of a building,
> jump off, and no matter how often or how persuasively you say "I have
> only the mass of a feather, I am drifting gently down", nature will
> not believe you.

So you think that giving one counterexample is equivalent to proving a 
general negative?

>  Try saying "I am as small as a mouse" and you still
> won't be able to run under a closed door, as I have seen a mouse do.
>
> 	Really?!  Now it seems to me that my morphs emit photons very nicely.
> 	True, they use the computer's screen to do this, but this doesn't
> 	really make a difference, does it?
>
> GOOD GRIEF CAN YOU BE SERIOUS?

Yes.

> Of course it makes a difference.

To you, maybe.  Not to the photons.

>  It's about as big a difference as
> there can possibly be.

LOL!

>  It's the difference between hiring a hit man
> and pulling the trigger yourself.

Don't agree.  It's more like the difference between shooting and 
strangling the person yourself.  But even your example isn't all that 
much of a difference, certainly not for the person involved, and not 
for the law.


> It's the
> difference between getting on a plane and being a bird.
>   It's the
> difference between sending an autonomous submersible to the bottom of
> the kermadec trench and drowning under 5 tons per square inch of
> pressure in person.  It's the difference between imagination and
> reality.

GOOD GRIEF CAN YOU BE SERIOUS?

So you are saying that people who get into airplanes are only imagining 
that they are in the air?  That they only imagine crossing the 
Atlantic?  And that falling down from there will not hurt them, because 
that is only in their imagination?

You are saying that anything accomplished with tools is just 
imagination and not reality.  Cool, you just wiped out almost all of 
human civilization with a simple logical fallacy.

> If I have a morph; it can ASK the screen to emit photons on its behalf,
> but if I have turned the screen off, nothing will happen.

So?  Without a plane, I cannot fly.  However, when I do fly (with 
plane), I am definitely flying.

>   The morph
> cannot emit photons by itself.

How is this relevant?  I cannot fire bullets by myself either.  I need 
a gun.  That doesn't put the bullets fired from the gun into the realm 
of the imaginary.  Furthermore, you are going to have a difficult time 
convincing the judge that it was, in fact, the gun and not you that 
fired the bullet...

>  In fact, right now, I _have_ some morphs
> that would be visible, except that the screen saver has kicked in and 
> the
> screen is in fact as dark as it gets.  The morphs don't know this, and
> THEY sure as heck aren't emitting any photons.

How is this at all relevant?  I didn't say they emit photons all the 
time.

> 	I mean, we generally think of ourselves as talking to each other
> 	even when there are implements inbetween, such as a telephone.
> 	
> In such a situation, we are indeed engaged in that social form,
> BUT the sound the other person hears is not the sound we emit
> and the sound we hear is not the sound the other person emits.

Yes.  So?

> It's a distorted copy of that sound, plus crackles, beeps, echoes,
> and other artefacts.

Exactly.  That does not prevent us from talking to each other.  Think 
about that for a second, before shouting again.

>  (When I used to ring home from California,
> there really were odd echoes.)  But this is a flawed analogy anyway,
> because both humans and telephones *are* physical objects which *can*
> emit sound.

Really?  Isn't my voice-box just a physical implement that converts my 
intentions into sound waves?

>   A better analogy would be a man without a voice writing
> a message on paper in Chinese and a woman reading it to you in English.
> And even that has its limits.

For what is this a good analogy?  I can't see anything about this 
except that it is absurd.  Of course, you think that what I am saying 
is absurd, but that only makes this a good analogy for your flawed 
interpretations.

> 	> The whole POINT of simulation is that it is NOT REALITY, only LIKE 
> it.
> 	
> 	Hmm...I though the POINT of simulation is that it is a LOT like
> 	reality, particularly in the aspect you are interested in.
>
> No.  Simulations have to be a LOT UNLIKE reality so that they can be
> cheap and fast.

Absurd.  What you are describing is not an inherent quality of a 
simulation.  Or is a simulation not a simulation any longer because it 
was expensive?

> 	> And my point is that vast amounts of computation are not about
> 	> simulating the physical world, so that for lots and lots of objects
> 	> there is no point in even trying to simulate physical objects.
> 	
> 	Hmm...I am not sure about that conclusion, and I actually think
> 	you are completely missing the point about a lot of OO.
> 	
> 	Just like high-level languages, OO is not necessarily about the
> 	problem, and certainly not about the computer.  The problem and
> 	the computer would be just as happy with bit-sequences toggled
> 	directly into the console.  However, giving a textual
> 	representation makes it easier for *humans* to deal with the
> 	problem.  And so do objects.  So even if the problem itself is
> 	not about objects in the physical world, it can still make a lot
> 	of sense to 'simulate' objects with characteristics like the
> 	those in the physical world in order to make it easier for
> 	humans (programmers / users) to deal with the problem.
>
> We are in complete agreement except for one thing.
> You say "simulate objects with characteristics like those in the
> physical world IN ORDER TO make it easier for humans", which is
> an assertion that it ALWAYS helps to do this.

No it is not, and your quoting is intellectually dishonest.  Just 
before the section you quoted, it says "CAN make a lot of sense to...".

Marcel

-- 
Marcel Weiher				Metaobject Software Technologies
marcel at metaobject.com		www.metaobject.com
Metaprogramming for the Graphic Arts.   HOM, IDEAs, MetaAd etc.