It is literally true that a computer is a machine and that it adds, but “adding machine” brings to mind a host of specific attributes that are not true for computers. “Floating black spheres” doesn’t similarly imply other attributes.
Also, “adding machine” is a noncentral description of computers because it omits important attributes that computers have. If that was likewise true for floating black spheres, then the example isn’t crazy at all—for instance, perhaps the spheres are nanobot swarms that can do almost anything, and being able to lower a male prostitute on a bungee cord is just a specific example of “anything”, and whoever described the spheres to me is being dishonest (although literally accurate) by failing to tell me that.
I think the idea is that “adding machine” is supposed to be the closest equivalent that a person from 1901 can understand, and that excuses the noncentral, misleading, description. It really isn’t, so it doesn’t.
Also, X-rays aren’t more blue than regular light. We often say that, but it’s shorthand for “x-rays have more of one particular trait that blue light has” and we normally say it to people to whom we can explain exactly which trait we are talking about and thus avoid misleading them. We wouldn’t say that the planet Venus is “very, very, Arizona” just because it’s hot, and especially not to someone who is likely to conclude that you mean it has even more cacti in it than Arizona.
It is literally true that a computer is a machine and that it adds, but “adding machine” brings to mind a host of specific attributes that are not true for computers. “Floating black spheres” doesn’t similarly imply other attributes.
Also, “adding machine” is a noncentral description of computers because it omits important attributes that computers have. If that was likewise true for floating black spheres, then the example isn’t crazy at all—for instance, perhaps the spheres are nanobot swarms that can do almost anything, and being able to lower a male prostitute on a bungee cord is just a specific example of “anything”, and whoever described the spheres to me is being dishonest (although literally accurate) by failing to tell me that.
I think the idea is that “adding machine” is supposed to be the closest equivalent that a person from 1901 can understand, and that excuses the noncentral, misleading, description. It really isn’t, so it doesn’t.
Also, X-rays aren’t more blue than regular light. We often say that, but it’s shorthand for “x-rays have more of one particular trait that blue light has” and we normally say it to people to whom we can explain exactly which trait we are talking about and thus avoid misleading them. We wouldn’t say that the planet Venus is “very, very, Arizona” just because it’s hot, and especially not to someone who is likely to conclude that you mean it has even more cacti in it than Arizona.