Brent Meeker wrote:
> 1Z wrote:
> >
> > Brent Meeker wrote:
> > The underlying physics of the thing will tell youwhether
> > it is capable of supporting countefactuals without
> > running a programme at all. There is something objectively
> > machine-like about machines -- complex , but predictable
> > behaviour.
>
> But so far as we know all machines, all physical objects, are described
> by quantum mechanics and therefore are subject to random variations,
> i.e. they could have done otherwise.
That applies to your PC. How often does it randomly crash ?
> So I don't see how that helps in
> distinguishing computation from noise.
You can't tell the difference between doing something
random once every day and doins something
random billions of times a seconc ?
> Are you thinking of abstract
> computation - which of course can be deterministic if you rule out
> randomness in the abstraction?
we construct machines to rule out randomness within
certain limits.
> Brent Meeker
--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group.
To post to this group, send email to everything-list.domain.name.hidden
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list-unsubscribe.domain.name.hidden
For more options, visit this group at
http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list
-~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
Received on Mon Jul 31 2006 - 16:20:09 PDT