Posted by
Nick Thompson on
URL: http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/A-question-for-tomorrow-tp7593073p7593088.html
Lee,
Remember, I and only I, am to blame for raising this question. There ain't
no "circles" here.
Belelagued as I am, I migh persist and ask you, "Ok, what does an
"instantiation" of a Turing Machine Know?"
Nick
Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology
Clark University
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/-----Original Message-----
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Sent: Saturday, April 27, 2019 7:22 AM
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Subject: Re: [FRIAM] A question for tomorrow
Maybe I've missed it, but has no one pointed out that a "Turing Machine"
is a mathematical formalism? I may be a stick in the mud, but I refuse to
extend the definition of "know" so far as to make "A Turing Machine knows
[something]" a meaningful statement. You might as well ask what a Goedel
Enumeration knows, or what The Classification of Finite Simple Groups knows.
Hell, what does the integer 1 know???
Now maybe in you-alls' circles, "Turing Machine" is used to refer to some
kinds of physical implementations of particular Turing Machines. But that's
a pernicious identification that can only lead to tears.
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