Re: What Computationalism is and what it is *not*

From: Norman Samish <ncsamish.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Mon, 5 Sep 2005 11:44:04 -0700

Hal Finney,

You say, ". . . the Church Thesis, which I would paraphrase as saying that
there are no physical processes more computationally powerful than a Turing
machine, or in other words that the universe could in principle be simulated
on a TM. I wouldn't be surprised if most people who believe that minds can
be simulated on TMs also believe that everything can be simulated on a TM."

I'm out of my depth here, but this doesn't make sense to me. My
understanding is that the Turing Machine is a hypothetical device. If one
could be built that operated at faster-than-light or infinite speed, maybe
it could, in principle, simulate the universe. However, this isn't
possible. Does this mean that the Church Thesis, hence computationalism,
is, in reality, false?

Norman Samish
Received on Mon Sep 05 2005 - 14:58:40 PDT