Re: A cake recipe is a computer program

From: Lester Zick (lesterDELzick_at_worldnet.att.net)
Date: 06/02/04 

Date: Wed, 02 Jun 2004 15:40:59 GMT

On Tue, 1 Jun 2004 21:52:42 -0400, "Matt Timmermans"
<mt0000@sympatico.nospam-remove.ca> in comp.ai.philosophy wrote:

>"Eray Ozkural exa" <erayo@bilkent.edu.tr> wrote in message
>news:fa69ae35.0406010900.7349ecc@posting.google.com...
>> Many years ago, there was a debate about whether a recipe was a
>> computer program or not. Now I have seen Neil refer to a recipe so I
>> must state: I think affirmative. What do you think?
>
>Over here in comp.theory, that depends entirely on whether or not the
>language you write it in is Turing complete.
>
>One may argue about whether or not any particular language is Turing
>complete as defined, because such definitions are often vague, but in every
>specific instance of communication the expressiveness of the language being
>used is clearly determined by the interpretive capabilities of the receiver.
>
>I think, therefore, that we can call a cake recipe a computer program if and
>only if humans are computers, or more specifically, universal Turing
>machines, when they read recipes.

Correct. A recipe is a program. But whether it is a computer program
depends on to whether the adjective computer applies to humans. Solve
that and you've answered the original question. Don't solve it and the
question goes unanswered regardless of collateral observations.

Regards - Lester

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