More like your programs exist as things themselves and there are meaningful things you can do and say about them that can't be reduced to action on and behaviour of transistors because by moving transistors you have thrown away the language needed to say what you wanted to say
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Replying to @ReferentOfSelf
What is a property of the program that can't be reduced to the actions of transistors?
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Replying to @CurlOfGradient
"this program reduces to the action of transistors"
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Replying to @ReferentOfSelf
That's a property of the program plus its environment, I will admit that.
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Replying to @CurlOfGradient @ReferentOfSelf
At least, it is a property of the program that requires a mind outside the program to see.
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Replying to @CurlOfGradient @ReferentOfSelf
But that mind outside the program will check it over and say "Yup, this program is the result of the transistors obeying simple circuit laws."
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Replying to @CurlOfGradient
What about "this program will behave like this when I click this button?" you can't reduce the program to transistors, only particular installations on particular architectures individually...
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Replying to @ReferentOfSelf @CurlOfGradient
And what if we make new cpu architectures and operating systems and make the installer for the program compatible with them?
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Replying to @ReferentOfSelf @CurlOfGradient
You will need a way of identifying all possible instances of that program. This leads to something like your objection to the sick man case (describing when someone will recognize something as an instance of that program) that I have yet to get to (need to read something first)
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Replying to @ReferentOfSelf
Each version of the program individually can be described in terms of the workings of the architecture it is operating on; it does not matter that "the program" is "instantiated" on multiple substrates. The identification of one version of the program with another is 1/2
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not a fundamental feature of the universe or the program. The higher-level "pattern" just happens to be the same, even though the lower levels are different. This is a happy curiosity, not a fundamental feature of the universe; that way likes Platonism.
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