by Mark C. Marino

The computer does not understand what it says. Literally speaking, the computer does not even interpret that code. When the function is called, the computer will print (output) the list of the two atoms (as symbolic units are called in Lisp) "Hello" and "World." The single quotation marks tell the computer not to interpret the words "Hello" and "World" (as the double quotation marks do in this sentence). With this distinction, language becomes divided between the operational code and data. The computer here merely shuffles the words as so many strings of data. It does not interpret, only uses those strings. However, those words in quotation marks are significant to us, the humans who read the code. "Hello" and "World" have significance, just as the function name "print" has a significance that goes far beyond its instructions to the computer and gestures toward a material culture of ink and writing surfaces.

Currently, all of computer code lies before us with single