On Thursday, January 30, 2014 10:32:02 PM UTC-5, Liz R wrote: > > It isn't *essential. *Technically, I believe I/O can be added to a > computer programme as some sort of initial settings (for any given run of > the programme). >
Added how though? By inputting code, yes? > Obviously this isn't much use in practice, of course! But from a > philosophical perspective it's possible, so it isn't ontologically > essential to the function of computation. > > A trivial example would be my son's Python programme to generate 2000 > digits of pi. It just uses some existing equation which generates each > digit in sequence. It happens to write the output to the screen, but if he > took out the relevant PRINT statement, it wouldn't - but it would still > compute the result. > The existing equation was input at some point though, and without the output, whether or not there was a computation is academic (and unfalsifiable). -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
