Hi Elephant, Roger and Peter,
JONATHAN:
The falling apple is an analogue computer that operates according
to very precise rules.
ELEPHANT:
Apples are not computers. Apples are Apples. Computers are Computers.
This misses the point entirely. Peter answered it for me
PETER:
>Almost anything can be an analogue computer
>for almost anything else, can't it?
Precisely - it is analogue because it uses "analogous" representation.
The representations can be voltages and currents running through silicon
wafers,
beads of an abacus, or even a whole planet built to compute the meaning of
life (that last one is for fans of Douglas Adams).
Thus whether or not a falling apple can be considered a computer or not is
contextual, and depends entirely on how the observer chooses to interpret his
observations. To put it another way, the answer is (dare I say it?)
SUBJECTIVE.
Jonathan
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