ABOUT A COMPUTER FOR AGNOSTICS
I was prompted to write this book by a truly Buddhist Emptiness, a cosmic vacuum where there should have been many such books. But they are not there. Schools do not teach the basics of computer knowledge, and they do not teach it in all sorts of courses. Instead of the basics of computer science, they teach the basics of typing and office work. Books are published, but they only contain the same Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint.
There is a good book by Charles Petzold, “Code: The Secret Language of Computer Science,” but it was published in the US more than 20 years ago.
charlespetzold.com/code/index.html
Nothing like this was written in Russian.
For example, the Mandelbrot set
The main thing is that all these books do not provide an understanding of how a computer is actually built and works. What is the notorious “byte” and so on. Learning by heart that “a byte is eight bits” essentially turns into a mantra, the meaning of which remains completely mysterious. While to understand a computer as a whole, you need a completely clear and distinct understanding of what a byte is.
Looking ahead, a byte is eight choices made in a row, each choice from two options, or, what is the same, one choice from 256 different options. Options of what exactly is a completely different question. Most often, brightness or volume. This is how a computer interacts with human senses – vision and hearing.
Lack of understanding breeds superstitions. Thus, misunderstanding of how the human body works breeds many superstitions about the need to “cleanse it of toxins.” But in fact, there are no toxins. Misunderstanding of electromagnetic waves breeds superstitions that microwaves “violate” the structure of products. In fact, the structure of biological objects is violated by short electromagnetic waves – those that are shorter than violet ones, namely, ultraviolet, X-rays and gamma rays, and microwaves use those that are longer than infrared. This same misunderstanding leads to the popularity of sunbathing and tanning beds, which naturally leads to many thousands of deaths from skin cancer caused by ultraviolet radiation. Misunderstanding of the principles of computer operation leads to the spread of malware and social engineering aimed at deceiving users, which amounts to trillions of rubles in losses in the economy and personal finances and to the loss of important data.
The very definition of the concept of “information” that is given in school does not stand up to any criticism, since it is a tautology. “Information is data”, “data is information”.
SEPULKI are an important element of the Ardritic civilization from the planet Enteropia. See SEPULCARIA.
SEPULCARIA – devices for sepulchration (see)
SEPULENIE – occupation of the Ardrites from the planet Enteropia. See SEPULENIE.
Space Encyclopedia, S. Lem. “Star Diaries of Ijon Tichy. Journey Fourteen”.
Although Ralph Hartley pointed out back in 1928 that information is a measure of uniqueness, the number of possible states of an object from which the only state is selected, the information about which is transmitted. And the minimum portion, a unit of information, is, accordingly, a choice of two options. This is called a “bit” – from the English abbreviation “bit” – “binary digit” – “binary digit”, there are only two of these digits.
Example: from how many books is a 300-page book selected?
How can we calculate how many different three-digit numbers there are if 10 different digits are used to write them? Experience tells us that the number of digits (10) should be raised to the power of the number of characters (3), which gives us 1000. How many different characters are used in a book? Let's assume that 100 is 32 capital letters, 32 lowercase letters, 10 digits, and punctuation marks. How many characters are in a book in total? Let's assume that there are 300 pages, with 50 lines on each page and 40 characters in each line. That's 2,000 characters per page, 600,000 characters in the entire book. So, to calculate how many different books like this can exist, we need to raise 100 to the power of 600,000. This is the same as 10 to the power of 1,200,000. That is, one and a million two hundred zeros! This is the measure of the uniqueness of this 300-page book.
About Google.
Why did I call this book “Computers for Agnostics”? Who are “agnostics”? Agnostics are those who deny the possibility of knowing the world. In this case, the possibility of knowing the structure and operation of a computer: “I will never understand this.” “I have no talent for higher mathematics.” “I have a humanitarian mindset.”
But in fact, no higher mathematics is used to create and operate computers. Simple arithmetic is used. Which, in theory, should be studied in school. But for some reason, it is studied there in an extremely truncated form. In the form of only decimal
number systems. At the same time, no special attention is paid to the fact that this is only one possible system out of many. Binary, ternary, quaternary, pentadial, hexadecimal, and so on, systems are not mentioned at all.
Why is this being done, what is the benefit of it – the only explanations that come to mind are conspiracy theories, because it is difficult to explain it rationally.
About the fact that the authorities do not need smart people. Under authoritarianism and totalitarianism, if a primary school teacher starts telling children about the ternary number system, he will be fired and sent to a mental hospital or prison.
Agnosticism is appropriate when it comes to chance. The forces were equal, but a random particle movement shifted the balance. At a random moment, a random pebble caused an avalanche to fall. At a random moment, an atom disintegrated. It is impossible to predict such events. However, computers are precisely such a place where, on the contrary, all measures have been consistently taken to eliminate any chance. A computer is a machine that operates according to strictly defined rules, based solely on logic. And from beginning to end, it was invented by man. Therefore, it is entirely predictable. There is nothing secret or mysterious about a computer.
So, a computer is a machine. You could even say, “a mechanical machine”, if we consider the movement of electrons to be mechanical. From the point of view of physics, this is an unacceptable simplification, but by and large, a modern computer is not fundamentally different from “Iron Felix”.
About the arithmometer Felix.
A computer can be built entirely on a mechanical basis – from toothed gears. It can be built on a hydraulic or pneumatic basis. That is, from pipes with water or air, valves and taps. It can be built on an optical basis, that is, from beams and mirrors. The element base is not important, what is important is the logic of events, their predictability and programmability for the future.
Here we will tell you about laundromats programmed with punch cards!
About music boxes.
About the decade-step machine, sequential refinement of a box with 10 boxes, inside each another 10 boxes
CODE AND CIPHER
Language is also a code.
The word “justice” in Russian and Japanese as an example.
It is important to understand that what is stored in a computer, processed according to rules, and transmitted via communication lines is only the code, not its meaning. The meaning that we see in the code is a product of our consciousness, and science knows little about consciousness. Processing codes by a computer is roughly like manipulating printing ink when creating a book – the printing machine does not understand the meaning of what is written in the book at all.
The information always contains the number of options from which the choice is made. For example, the number 3 is not just 3, but 3 out of 256 or 2 out of 65536 or 3 out of 16777216 or some other number of different options, their number is always precisely determined.
