Re: Turing Machines and Physical Computation

From: Eray Ozkural exa (examachine_at_gmail.com)
Date: 11/23/04

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    Date: 23 Nov 2004 05:56:15 -0800

    JXStern <JXSternChangeX2R@gte.net> wrote in message news:<8pd5q05sssv81pna4roij6ork5lo20lrj9@4ax.com>...
    > On 22 Nov 2004 03:05:57 -0800, examachine@gmail.com (Eray Ozkural
    > exa) wrote:
    > >Agreed. Turing seems to be a concrete physicalist.
    >
    > More of a positivist, considering the context of his time and place.
    >
    > Which I like to try to reinterpret as instrumentalist.
    >
    > And constructivist.
    >
    > Postivism implies some sort of physicalism, I think, or at least it
    > should.
    >
    > Unfortunately, Turing never give a fig about being nominalist or not,
    > which is another reinterpretation I like to give to OCN.

    Personally, I do not condone those idealist re-readings of Turing
    which litter these newsgroups. They are just as bad as braindead
    behaviorism for what it's worth.

    Although Turing does not make it clear where he stands, well, he
    clearly is not part of the Vienna Circle, but his works can be
    conceived as part of the larger paradigm of positivism, if not logical
    positivism.

    I would also like to interpret his work as nominalist, and it
    certainly reads as if it were instrumentalist, because of the style of
    arguments in "Computing Machinery and Intelligence".

    At any rate, these idealist revisionists like Stephen Harris will find
    it difficult to understand the necessary conditions for computation.
    What they are doing is no philosophy of computation, it is theology.
    TURING WAS NO THEOLOGIST, HE WAS AN INTELLIGENT MAN.

    In particular, Harris and several others here do not seem to
    understand the distinction between unbounded and infinite. They claim
    they understand the distinction, but that is not the case.

    ------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Stephen, now I do not wish to seem sore or unsympathetic, but you are
    not understanding a very simple fact of the matter, perhaps for the
    100th time.

    1. The ID of a TM is finite at all times.

    Do you agree or not?

    2. The space of a physical computer is finite at all times.

    Do you agree or not?

    3. There is no machine in the world that is larger than the universe.

    Do you agree or not?

    Where is your purported discrepancy then? Because, the following easy
    scientific arguments follow.

    4. Therefore *IF* the universe is finite (WHICH WE DO NOT HAVE
    CONCLUSIVE PHYSICAL EVIDENCE OF, ONLY SOME EVIDENCE THAT POINTS TO
    THAT!), THEN, it is absurd to talk of ANY MACHINES WITH INFINITE SIZE.

    5. However, since a theory is not concerned with how large that finite
    size is, the theory depicts in principle AN UNBOUNDED SPACE. That does
    not mean it shows the EXISTENCE OF MACHINES LARGER THAN THE UNIVERSE.
    It only says that, WELL IF OUR UNIVERSE WERE LARGER, WE COULD
    CONSTRUCT LARGER MACHINES.

    6. If on the other hand the universe if INFINITE (WHICH WE DO NOT
    KNOW!), then Turing Machines make unconditional predictions for the
    causal structures of all possible machines (requires separate
    argumentation and acception of C-T but easy to see)

    I think you do not understand any of the 6 steps of argumentation. 5
    clearly exceeds your toolkit, but even 1, I don't think you understand
    it. I don't think you or any of these idealist crowd here truly
    understand the distinction between actual infinite space and unbounded
    space. (And I don't expect you to understand the conditional nature of
    4-6)

    Let me repeat if for you so that you get a permanent fix.

    THE TURING MACHINE DOES NOT HAVE AN INFINITE TAPE. IT HAS AN UNBOUNDED
    TAPE. THIS IS SO BECAUSE ITS DESCRIPTION IS NEVER ACTUALLY INFINITE AT
    ANY TIME OF OPERATION. IT IS ALWAYS FINITE WHICH MEANS IT IS
    REPRESENTABLE IN FINITE SPACE.

    Note that I also think you have a gross misunderstanding of scientific
    theories in general.

    Consider geometry. The theory of spaces, discrete or continuous, does
    not matter, are in fact theories of physical spaces as well as spaces
    of possible worlds. However, the latter metaphysical character of
    geometry does not reduce its value in depicting the physical world.
    This is a much more difficult issue, and you can't get around it by
    your irrelevant quoting and misinterpretation of some web pages you
    found on google. 

    --
Eray Ozkural
  • Next message: Eray Ozkural exa: "Re: Infinite number of people toss a coin infinite times"

    Relevant Pages

    • Turing Machines and Physical Computation
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    • Turing Machines and Physical Computation
      ... > Turing Machines are idealized which means they are not physically realized. ... they have an infinite tape. ... Ignoring physical plausibility directly opposes physicalism. ... Every process within the universe is finite ...
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    • Re: Turing Machines and Physical Computation & TM S REVISIONISTS
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    • Re: Turing Machines and Physical Computation & TM S REVISIONISTS
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      (sci.math)
    • Re: Turing Machines and Physical Computation
      ... Turing seems to be a concrete physicalist. ... > Postivism implies some sort of physicalism, I think, or at least it ... THAT!), THEN, it is absurd to talk of ANY MACHINES WITH INFINITE SIZE. ...
      (sci.math)