Conditionals

Abstract

For practical purposes a computer is an abstraction. True, there are certain physical events — such as the flow of electric currents — that are the basis of its function, but they are almost as remote from the actual steps of a program as the switching operations of our individual brain cells are from our thoughts. Philosophers are not generally neurologists, nor are computer programmers required to be experts in electronics.

...Personally, I never feel that I understand a thing satisfactorily, however fully it may be proved mathematically, unless I also have a clear mental picture of it.’

‘Cathode Ray’, Wireless World February, 1937