Alan says these two things in different comments: > (and when we send "data" somewhere, how can we send it so its meaning is preserved?) > This is why "the objects of the future" have to be ambassadors that can negotiate with other objects they've never seen. I don't know how this can be possible. If this was a solvable this problem then you could figure out how to send Arabic to both Chinese and English participants and have the preserved meaning translated instantly in both languages without specifying an intermediary to perform such task. A translator is able to translate because it has the knowledge to translate between different representations of data. This all boils down to a turing system in place to follow the instructions to transform the data. These "objects of the future" would be built from data anyway, otherwise how do you inscribe any meaning? Unless you're God, you'll never be able to figure out something's intent when it does anything without already having the knowledge of how to interpret what it does to begin with. This whole discussion is strange to me and I don't know why Rich is justifying why data isn't a bad idea to someone like Alan.

The discussion between Alan and Rich feels like a semantics debate between a between a philosopher and a partitioner. It’s possible Alan is referencing an argument he or someone else has put forth in the past so maybe my confusion comes from a lack of context?