The source of virtualization
I just read a nice random quotation from David Berlinsky, author of _The Advent of the Algorithm_:
Every computer divides itself into its hardware and its software, the machine host to its algorithm, the human being to his mind. It is hardly surprising that men and women have done what computers now do long before computers could do anything at all. The dissociation between mind and matter in men and machines is very striking; it suggests that almost any stable and reliable organization of material objects can execute an algorithm and so come to command some form of intelligence.
Asking what algorithm(s) the organization of material executes and where those algorithms execute opens up some of the more interesting questions in static pattern engineering. For instance, a motion sensing light that turns on when someone approaches is executing a simple yet effective algorithm that hopefully produces an intended result in a would-be intruder; however, so may a wooden sign that reads ‘Beware of Dog’.
(Will be expanded on a later edit – just a quick publish)
