Do files on your computer have a physical location?

>>60656247
Yes.

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>>60656247
yes

If you use a hard drive, yes.

>>60656247
Those electrons have to be stored somewhere.

>>60656247
yes

Files are always arranged atoms and always have a location

Is the moon still there while you're not looking?

>>60656264
>thinks files are stored as electrons

>>60656247
Yes. In theory you could send in a nanobot with a tiny voltmeter and read the physical ones and zeroes (charged/discharged capacitors) which are your file. Which is why you should always wipe hard drives before physically destroying them.

>>60656284
Anon, how do you think magnetism works?

>>60656247

Yes, your computer.

Really?

>>60656288
>magnetism
electromagnetism*

>>60656288
>Anon, how do you think magnetism works?
By changing polarity

not by storing electrons

>>60656306
Right, but the electrons are still physically there.

>>60656259
>>60656261
>>60656262
>>60656273
>>60656287
>>60656290
One could argue that the files on your computer are not physical, but ideas which are represented by an arrangement of charged particles. Sort of like saying a book may exist as a physical object, but the words in the book do not.

>>60656322
So are neutrons and protons

>>60656323
>One could argue that the files on your computer are not physical, but ideas which are represented by an arrangement of charged particles.

Explain to me how a particle (atom) is not physical.

>>60656323
>Sort of like saying a book may exist as a physical object, but the words in the book do not.

Explain to me how ink characters are not physical objects made of ink

>>60656329
And?

>>60656352
And you don't have to have "stored electrons" to move or record data

>>60656346
I'm not disputing the atoms are physical (they are of course).

>Explain to me how ink characters are not physical objects made of ink
Because a character is a concept, not a thing. Characters are created by the arrangement of ink, not simply by ink existing. You can splash ink all over a page, that won't make it into words.

Another idea: words and data can be transferred between mediums with no real regard to the laws of physics (please do not go into absurd objections to this). Objects can't do that.

>>60656363
>The storage material has no electrons in it?

Pure ions?

Are you retarded?

>>60656379
Clearly it is the arrangement of atoms that constitutes information.

that's the whole point, not to lose the arrangement

yes, of course

>>60656390
But can you definitively say such an arrangement constitutes a physical object?

>we're not going to solve this here, this is a fairly controversial philosophy subject

>>60656383
It would be ridiculous to describe the way we save information on computers as "stored electrons"

>>60656284
they are in flash (ssd's)

>>60656400
>But can you definitively say such an arrangement constitutes a physical object?

The order of physical objects constitutes the arrangement

>>60656400
op asked if they have a physical location, not if they are a physical object

They are stored as physical 0s and 1s in the 12th dimension but the CIA doesnt want you to know it.

>>60656400
The blocks and sectors on a hard drive literally have a physical location on each platter, where ones and zeroes are stored as electromagnetic bits. You're literally being retarded about this.

>>60656432
You're 10 minutes behind the conversation. Read the thread again.

>>60656323
*neurons start firing*

>>60656400
i wouldn't call data on a disk a physical object in and of itself, but it does have a particular physical location on that disk

think of it like a drawing made in sand on a beach
the drawing isn't an object itself per-se, just an arrangement of sand particles
these particles, and therefore the drawing made with them, have a physical location on the beach

>>60656456
The question want "is data a physical object", it was "is data stored in a physical location". Moving the goal posts only makes you look desperate to look smart.

>>60656411
I can agree to that, but I don't know if I can agree that the arrangement itself exists in the physical because it possesses properties that do not follow the laws of physics.

>>60656420
I'm not sure these can be separated. My hunch is no. For something to exist in the physical it will have effects on the rest of the world. It would have a gravitational pull based on its properties, for instance. Data is gravity independent.

>>60656402
'yes' would suffice as an answer, retard.

>>60656479
>implying this thread is not intended to be mental masturbation

>>60656495
yes,

you are wrong

happy?

>>60656511

Ebin

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>>60656494
>it possesses properties that do not follow the laws of physics.

There are no "laws of physics" there are theories and evidence to support them, but no laws as you mean the term

and computers do work within the established theories of psychics, I assure you

>>60656508
Maybe for children with no idea how a hard drive actually functions.

>>60656471
I tend to agree with you in the long run, but if you think a bit more about the sand drawing idea it gets hard to pin down just exactly what part of our universe such things are.

Might as well as if you yourself have a physical location.

>>60656547
shhhh

College educated people are having a discussion here.

No

It's all in da Clouds :D

>>60656530
>There are no "laws of physics" there are theories and evidence to support them, but no laws as you mean the term
>Newton's Law
>Laws of Thermodynamics
>Yeah, brah, there are no physical 'laws' at all.
Moron

>>60656530
>and computers do work within the established theories of psychics
mild kek

>>60656262
As opposed to? Clue me in on data which doesn't have a physical medium.

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>>60656581
Strong argument

Laws are an old world terminology for "theory supported by evidence"

However computers follow all the main theories supported by evidence and thus you could say they follow the "old laws" of physics

The thing about "Newton's Law" is that it is wrong. E=Mc2 was found to supersede that "Law" and the word "Law" has not been used in mainstream science since.

There are only theories, and evidence to support those theories.

Sorry for facts.

Moron

>>60656554
even ideas have physical locations
be it on disks, sand, or the brain, or multiple copies thereof
destroy every copy and the idea goes with them

>>60656627
>There are only theories, and evidence to support those theories.

This is true.

>>60656323
There is *at least* a physical system which represents he data. Whether the information is more than an arrangement of matter is a philosophical question, and if we try to answer it /lit/ will laugh at us.

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>>60656648
>There is *at least* a physical system which represents he data.
no faggot it's magic

>not believing in magic

2017

>>60656530
Computers ≠ data, but I can see where you would make the mistake in thinking so. Computers (and all processing they do) do still have to follow the limitations of physics as we know them (sometimes in exotic ways that may not be immediately obvious and hard to grasp: halting problem, etc) but data by itself isn't bound by this.

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>>60656669
>data by itself isn't bound by this.

oh please

do explain

>>60656669

Wrong.

No matter what definition of data that you use, it is still bound by the physics of our universe.
If it's data in a computer, then it exists physically in some sort of memory medium.
If it it's data in your brain, then it exists as electrical impulses.

If somehow some piece of information were truly deleted off of every memory medium and completely forgotten by all entities, then it would literally cease to exist. Unless you believe in the supernatural.

>>60656677

Data has arbitrary properties. I can manipulate the form of data in whatever manner I please, dividing or duplicating or reassigning values.

I made a slight error when I said processing is bound by limitations of physics. It's not only that, but the limitations of processing itself. Here, you can't just make up your own definitions. Anything you do is already defined (and if it isn't hoo boy). And you can't skip steps in the process. You can't tell a computer how to do something without going through all the steps of the process.

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>>60656739
>No matter what definition of data that you use, it is still bound by the physics of our universe.

NO IT'S MAGIC FAGGOT

MAGIC

>>60656739
>No matter what definition of data that you use
You were a little loose there, anon. Because here I can say that knowledge of math is data, and even if all of it was forgotten by humanity only to be later rediscovered I can argue it is the very same math knowledge coming back into existence again. It hasn't changed between mediums. I can say that data can be medium independent and exist in many places at once as the same thing.

>>60656747
>Data has arbitrary properties. I can manipulate the form of data in whatever manner I please, dividing or duplicating or reassigning values.

Dividing is not arbitrary, duplicating is not arbitrary, reassigning is not arbitrary.

you don't know what arbitrary means
>>60656747
>I made a slight error when I said processing is bound by limitations of physics. It's not only that, but the limitations of processing itself. Here, you can't just make up your own definitions. Anything you do is already defined (and if it isn't hoo boy). And you can't skip steps in the process. You can't tell a computer how to do something without going through all the steps of the process.

what is your point, where do you get out of being bound by what we know as physics?

>6:10 AM EST
that was fun but don't look for any more replies because a man has to sleep sometime

>>60656400
no it constitutes a representation

have you never heard the map is not the territory?

>>60656594
cloud :^)

>>60656772

Our knowledge of math is data. Data is a means to represent an end, but it is not the end itself.
If somehow all humans and our storage mediums were destroyed, our data would be gone. Mathematics would continue to exist in the sense that our universe would continue to abide by the laws that we seem have discovered. Only our representation of those laws would be gone.
I'm sure if aliens exist they have their own knowledge and representation of mathematics as data. But it's data that's different than ours. It just represents the same thing.

>>60656247
no, they are in fucking magic unicorn wonderland and when you save or read your data you actually create warp to this dimension. It's kind of like opening and closing IO stream but in hardware it works that way

>it's a /g/ is absolutely retarded episode
Hate these

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>>60657266

Great job trying to sound superior yet lacking the balls to state an opinion

>>60656323
No you can't because there are physical sections on HDDs where magnetic alignments are specifically kept, and similar concepts with voltage and NAND

>>60656261
Where can I get a decent collection of all of the thinking emojis? I see them all over discord, but it would take too long to collect them all. Some of them are great.

There must be a centralised repository

>>60656379
>Because a character is a concept, not a thing. Characters are created by the arrangement of ink, not simply by ink existing. You can splash ink all over a page, that won't make it into words.

Isn't that like saying cookies are created by the arrangement of dough, and therefore are not things?

>>60656323
Ideas are just the arrangement of particles in your nervous system and body.

>>60656264
What do you mean by physical? I'm not sure if we've proven that there is a particle for every perturbation in every field (see: nondeterminism).

>>60656911
yeah because cloud is made of imaginary bytes floating in the space
files in cloud are just on someone else's drives

Does anyone have that picture of a black guy on some weird computer wearing glasses in a matrix background?

>>60656323
>*idealism intensifies*