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----- From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of lrudo...@meganet.net Sent: Saturday, April 27, 2019 7:22 AM To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam@redfish.com> 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. ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove