The instructions in software do alter a computer machine states
held in its memory arrays that are constantly being updated and processed.
That's part of the math of how a computer system works at a very basic and
fundamental level. I believe that is the meaning you should have taken.
You are referring to the representations of the symbols. What I
meant to express is that the symbols are not their physical representations. I
have explained why it is so in the article.
During execution symbols are
written. The act of writing doesn't transform math into something concrete.
Also, writing doesn't create the meaning. The knowledge of how symbols should be
read belongs to the reader independently from the act of writing.
Is it just
me or your comment is a description of how people interact with devices having
contents but without using the word contents? This kind of explanation gives the
impression that the hardware does everything. But symbols are not hardware.
There is such a thing as contents whether or not the explanation uses the
word.
Read again the part of the article about how the same boolean gate
computes two different boolean functions. Also read the part about the adder
circuit which does two different additions depending on the syntax used to
represent numbers. In both cases one can't tell which meaning is intended by
looking at the circuit alone. Knowledge of what is intended matters.
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