modlin at concentric.net wrote:
>> In <6hqseq$q8n at ux.cs.niu.edu>, rickert at cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert) writes:
>> [modlin] What is your definition of computation?
>> >A computation is a set of causal operation which take place in the
> >world, and which have a certain kind of mathematical description.
>> [modlin] Under your rules, is a Turing machine capable of computation?
>> >No. It is capable of formal computation, but not of computation,
> >where formal computation is a mathematical idealization of
> >computation.
>> Interesting. Your conflation of "computation" with notions of
> physically realized causality is something I've not encountered
> before... none of the classic works on computability uses it that way,
> and indeed I can't think of a single author who would balk at saying
> that a Turing machine computes. Computation is an abstraction,
> inherently distinct from the engineering practicalities of a device
> which might instantiate it.
>> I think I'll just stop talking to you about this... it would be too
> annoyingly clumsy to adopt your idiosyncratic usage just for that
> purpose. Unfortunate.
Every time I check in here, I find you guys having the same silly
parochial disagreements about who is being more clumsy or idiosyncratic
(and "a Turing machine computes" is strikingly clumsy -- your professed
ignorance concerning the universe of authors cannot be construed as
*support* for using the phrase; a Turing machine is a *description* of a
computation).
For an *informed* discussion of the issues of computation, cognition,
instantiation, and their relationship, I refer you once again to
http://ling.ucsc.edu/~chalmers/papers/computation.html
(and I will mention, once again for those who confuse people with their
ideas, that this recommendation is not an endorsement of Chalmer's
anti-materialism).
--
<J Q B>
