Re: What language will be used to write the first self aware program?

Raffael Cavallaro <raffaelcavallaro@pas-d'espam-s'il-vous-plait-mac.com> writes:
We humans on the other hand can know if we are inside the Matrix ;^).

Pascal Bourguignon wrote:
It's not obvious.

Bill Gosper in HAKMEM notes that we can find out how the Matrix
represents numbers:

ITEM 154 (Gosper):
The myth that any given programming language is machine independent is
easily exploded by computing the sum of powers of 2.
If the result loops with period = 1 with sign +, you are on a
sign-magnitude machine.
If the result loops with period = 1 at -1, you are on a twos-complement
machine.
If the result loops with period > 1, including the beginning, you are
on a ones-complement machine.
If the result loops with period > 1, not including the beginning, your
machine isn't binary -- the pattern should tell you the base.
If you run out of memory, you are on a string or Bignum system.
If arithmetic overflow is a fatal error, some fascist pig with a
read-only mind is trying to enforce machine independence. But the very
ability to trap overflow is machine dependent.
By this strategy, consider the universe, or, more precisely, algebra:
let X = the sum of many powers of two = ...111111
now add X to itself; X + X = ...111110
thus, 2X = X - 1 so X = -1
therefore algebra is run on a machine (the universe) which is
twos-complement.

.

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