[justinjlynn]

What's wrong with that? They are. We can always make the finer distinction of "Von Neumann architecture inspired digital electronic computer" if you wish to exclude the examples you've given. After all, anything which transforms a particular input to a particular output in a consistent fashion could be considered a computer which implements a particular function. I would say - don't confuse the word's meaning with the object's function and simply choose a context in which a word refers to a particular meaning, adapt to others contexts and translate, and simply deal with the fact that there is no firm division between computer and not-computer out in the word somewhere apart from people and their context-rich communications. If the context in which you're operating with an interlocutor is clear enough for you to jump to a correction of usage ... simply don't; beyond verifying your translation is correct, of course. As you're already doing this - likely without realising it - by taking care in doing so consciously you're likely to find your communications more efficient, congenial, and illuminating than they otherwise would be.

[shermantanktop]

This is the double-edged sword of deciding to widen (or narrow) the meaning of a term which already has a conventional meaning.

By doing so, you get to make a point—perhaps via analogy, perhaps via precision, perhaps via pedantry—which is illuminating for you but now confusing for your reader. And to explain yourself, you must swim upstream and redefine a term while simultaneously making a different point altogether.

Much has been written about jargon, but a primary benefit of jargon is the chance to create a domain-specific meaning without the baggage of dictionary-correct associations. It’s also why geeks can be bores at dinner parties.

[derefr]

We live in a society (of letters.) Communication is not pairwise in a vacuum; all communication is in context of the cultural zeitgeist in which it occurs, and by intentionally choosing to use a non-zeitgeist-central definition of a term, you are wasting the time of anyone who talks to you.

By analogy to HCI: words are affordances. Affordances exist because of familiarity. Don’t make a doorknob that you push on, and expect people not to write in telling you to use a door-bar on that door instead.

[atoav]

You are not wrong, yet you are. All of these things are doing computation in a vague, creative sense — sure. But if we call everything that does this or its equivalent a computer we would have to find new words for the thing we mean to be a computer currently.

Unilaterally changing language is not forbidden, but if The Culture Wars™ has thought us anything, it is that people are allergic to talking about what they see as mandated changes to their language, even if it is reasonable and you can explain it.

Colour me stoked, but you could still just do it unilaterally and wait till somebody notices.

However my caveat with viewing everything as computation is that you fall into the same trap as people in the ~1850s did when they wanted to describe everything in the world using complex mechanical devices, because that was the bleeding edge back then. Not everything is an intricate system of pulleys and levers it turned out, even if theoretically you could mimic everything if that system was just complex enough.