tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7225373.post429066294586072847..comments2024-02-29T03:34:23.190-05:00Comments on Who Were the Sea Peoples?: Does it make sense to speak of artifacts in computer simulations?gcallahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10065877215969589482noreply@blogger.comBlogger9125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7225373.post-13679111192561445232015-01-19T22:12:51.640-05:002015-01-19T22:12:51.640-05:00See the Soviet Union's Setun which used ternar...See the Soviet Union's <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Setun" rel="nofollow">Setun</a> which used ternary logic. Two states are much easier to represent than three or more since there are no intermediate values. We humans are used to base ten, but this came from the Arabs. Babylon had a base 60 numeral system. Rome, on the other hand, didn't have a base system at all.Samson Corwellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10148822362930969284noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7225373.post-16446557807488495382015-01-19T22:08:50.915-05:002015-01-19T22:08:50.915-05:00Sure. Why not? Using binary floating point, for ex...Sure. Why not? Using binary floating point, for example, introduces errors in certain decimal calculations.Samson Corwellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10148822362930969284noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7225373.post-48512987509261584572015-01-19T15:37:00.664-05:002015-01-19T15:37:00.664-05:00You make assumptions to create the model, then exp...You make assumptions to create the model, then experiment to see how those assumptions play out. Certainly none of my recent models predict anything.gcallahhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10065877215969589482noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7225373.post-74403676327304535802015-01-18T17:56:51.949-05:002015-01-18T17:56:51.949-05:00If an artefact is an effect introduced by the meth...If an artefact is an effect introduced by the method, why wouldn't computer simulations be full of them? Numbers are rounded, time measures corespond to intervals not instants, etc. that is why computer simulations should really be thought of as predictions rather than experiments. Ken Bhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08207803092348071005noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7225373.post-64481683157346173682015-01-18T17:52:54.344-05:002015-01-18T17:52:54.344-05:00Yes. Shannon mapped two valued boolean logic to on...Yes. Shannon mapped two valued boolean logic to on/off electrical circuits. It was probably the most influential master's thesis in history. Ken Bhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08207803092348071005noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7225373.post-65617960924403519182015-01-17T15:50:39.830-05:002015-01-17T15:50:39.830-05:00Yes, I think that is right, Matt. But we have a na...Yes, I think that is right, Matt. But we have a name already for the last category: a bug.gcallahhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10065877215969589482noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7225373.post-53387036171199961432015-01-17T15:49:58.327-05:002015-01-17T15:49:58.327-05:00Your instinct was right. Vacuum tubes apparently a...Your instinct was right. Vacuum tubes apparently also easily transmit an on or off state. You could do all this with plumbing, too: read water flowing as '1' and no water as '0': it would just be a LOT slower!gcallahhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10065877215969589482noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7225373.post-38776933431020210202015-01-17T03:47:33.493-05:002015-01-17T03:47:33.493-05:00Perhaps we need to distinguish between three thing...Perhaps we need to distinguish between three things here: reality, the model, and the technology that implements the model.<br /><br />Is an artifact an error in how the model approximates reality, or an error in how the technology implements the model?Matthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02470489293820651609noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7225373.post-29664041827988909542015-01-16T22:57:27.019-05:002015-01-16T22:57:27.019-05:00I had a computer game once where you would find ru...I had a computer game once where you would find ruins left by a different species who went extinct thousands of years previously. So there were artifacts in that computer simulation, for sure...<br /><br />On another note, my son was asking me how they program computers, and I got into the binary code / machine language / interpreter language stuff. He asked me why computers used base 2.<br /><br />My instinct was to say because it corresponded to the on/off state of an electric circuit, but I stopped when I realized I was bluffing. Any insight, you who are master of several fields?<br /><br />Bob Murphyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04001108408649311528noreply@blogger.com