Re: Turing Machines and Physical Computation

From: JXStern (JXSternChangeX2R_at_gte.net)
Date: 11/21/04 

Date: Sun, 21 Nov 2004 22:09:05 GMT

On Sun, 21 Nov 2004 21:54:26 GMT, "Stephen Harris"
<cyberguard1048-usenet@yahoo.com> wrote:
>One can change "emulating programs" to emulating machines without error.

Agreed.

>I think he means in comparison to Finite Automatas which have
>a finite limitation that Turing Machines do not. FAs do not have
>the same computational power as TMs meaning a UTM.

He should say what he means.

As should I, I suppose.

Perhaps what I am interested in is a class on the fuzzy boundary
between FA and UTM, large FA's, equivalent to this here machine I am
typing on. I suspect many others would be interested in this same
class, if indeed it is distinguishable in principle from either
smaller FA's or UTMs. I suppose it is distinguishable, but perhaps
not interestingly so.

>http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/turing-machine/
>A Turing machine is a kind of state machine.
>Turing machines are not physical objects but mathematical ones.

Fascinating, a non-physical state machine.

I'm a big fan of SEP, but I believe the idealist interpretation they
give Turing machines in several articles is inconsistent with what
Turing wrote, and inconsistent with what he wrote about.

>These two assumptions are intended to ensure that the definition of
>computation that results is not too narrow.

OK, and let us also worry that it not be too broad.

J.

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