Re: Turing Machines and Physical Computation

From: David Longley (David_at_longley.demon.co.uk)
Date: 11/21/04 

Date: Sun, 21 Nov 2004 22:17:31 +0000

In article <320e992a.0411210912.2c28c29d@posting.google.com>, Eray
Ozkural exa <examachine@gmail.com> writes
>David Longley <David@longley.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
>news:<pDc1BAEpHynBFwDy@longley.demon.co.uk>...
>> In article <ddEnd.23771$6q2.22891@newssvr14.news.prodigy.com>, Stephen
>> Harris <cyberguard1048-usenet@yahoo.com> writes
>> >I can't see how bringing finite TMs into this issue, just because they
>> >are practical is useful at all. The issue being discussed is not
>> >practical/physical
>> >but theoretical, hypothetical and abstract; an idea not a physical thing.
>> >
>>
>> Are you sure about that? Are you sure you haven't missed the whole point
>> of what the first half of 20th century philosophy and earlier (from
>> Frege to Goedel and beyond) was really all about?
>
>In this part I might actually agree with Longley! Dolan and others
>miss the whole point! Analytical/synthetic distinction indeed does not
>exist. (And on that point I agree with Quine) Why is this distinction
>relevant? Because saying that "an idea is not a physical thing" is a
>lot like saying that "well, ideas can be purely analytical. analytical
>concepts are DISTINCT from synthetic concepts, so it can be the case
>that an idea is not a physical thing...". Close enough.
>
>This is of course a very confused philosophy. Saying that "an idea is
>not a physical thing" is an automatic admission of Cartesian Dualism.
>It shows that the person who said it NEVER READ ANY 20th CENTURY
>PHILOSOPHY. And I suggest such ignorant persons like Dolan to stay
>away from philosophical discussions, it is not their league.
>
>> It was, I suggest, a
>> record of failure - the failure of analyticity and the banality of
>> computing. The collapse of any search for "foundations" for philosophy
>> (of mathematics) led to an enlightened empiricism (which abandons
>> intensionalism or analyticity, along with reductionism in favour of
>> extensionalism.
>
>Well, of course I don't agree with this. Computing is not banal. It is
>not analytic either. How did you make that up?
>
>And here is a serious question for you, David. If programming
>languages are "extensional" as you like to proclaim, how come
>computing not be an adequate tool for "extensional" stance?

It is, that's why the PROBE system is a computational system for
behaviour profiling and programing. The critical fact that you seem to
have overlooked is that the computation is just a way of better managing
behaviour from the extensional stance. By itself, computationalism is
just arid, banal solipsistic blind metaphysics. Look to video games etc
- they *exploit* something fundamental in our behaviour, ie the basics
of the three term contingency. What you don't see is that exploits all
that science moves on from, ie our folk psychologically. A lot of
programming does that. The computer "scientist" just pulls his armchair
up to a keyboard and VDU - it's still modern metaphysics unless it
improves prediction and control of our sensory surfaces through
advancing science.

>
>[snip more stuff I find irrelevant]
>

Maybe you ought to look into it further. What I have been telling you is
more subtle than you realise.

>--
>Eray Ozkural 

-- 
David Longley