Notably that post has a section arguing against roughly the sort of thing I’m arguing for:
Making the definition of what constitutes a low level language dependent on laws of physics is removing it from the realm of mathematics and philosophy. It is not a property of the language any more, but a property shared by the language and physical reality.
My response would be: yes, what-constitutes-a-low-level-language is obviously contingent on our physics and even on our engineering, not just on the language. I wouldn’t even expect aliens in our own universe to have low-level programming languages very similar to our own. Our low level languages today are extremely dependent on specific engineering choices made in the mid 20th century which are now very locked in by practice, but do not seem particularly fundamental or overdetermined, and would not be at all natural in universes with different physics or cultures with different hardware architecture. Aliens would look at our low-level languages and recognize them as low-level for our hardware, but not at all low-level for their hardware.
Analogously: choice of a good computing machine depends on the physics of one’s universe.
I do like the guy’s style of argumentation a lot, though.
Notably that post has a section arguing against roughly the sort of thing I’m arguing for:
My response would be: yes, what-constitutes-a-low-level-language is obviously contingent on our physics and even on our engineering, not just on the language. I wouldn’t even expect aliens in our own universe to have low-level programming languages very similar to our own. Our low level languages today are extremely dependent on specific engineering choices made in the mid 20th century which are now very locked in by practice, but do not seem particularly fundamental or overdetermined, and would not be at all natural in universes with different physics or cultures with different hardware architecture. Aliens would look at our low-level languages and recognize them as low-level for our hardware, but not at all low-level for their hardware.
Analogously: choice of a good computing machine depends on the physics of one’s universe.
I do like the guy’s style of argumentation a lot, though.