[samatman]

I understand the distinction between a string and a numerically-encoded version of it, but my computer doesn't.

[a1369209993]

But your computer does understand the distinction between a string numerically encoded as consecutive bytes in memory, versus a string encoded as a arbitrary-precision integer equal to ( 2^(first ASCII value) * 3^(second ASCII value) * 5^(third '') * 7^(fourth '') * ... ).