X-Message-Number: 15477 Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 21:48:19 -0800 From: Lee Corbin <> Subject: What Kind of Turing Machines Could People Be? In Message #15466 Joseph Kehoe wrote >The thesis is anything that can be done by a Turing machine >is a computable algorithm AND any computable algorithm can >be implemented as a Turing machine. This is true provided that we interpret "Turing machine" to be a mathematical set of quadruples (or quintuples), which, in the canonical setup, takes as input an integer argument. This Turing machine, as implied, calculates a computable function if and only if it halts. But to me, the key idea revolving around the question, "could a TM ever emulate a person?" is something quite different. How do we idealize (for analytical purposes) a human who arrives in the world with a set of instincts, then absorbs cultural and societal traditions and norms, all the while restlessly exploring its environment? Further, this human is influenced by all that it sees and hears in the universe! I submit that the correct analog is a Turing machine with a finite set of quadruples (including universality) placed upon an infinite tape containing potentially infinitely many patterns to examine, including other TMs to examine and emulate. This TM, like a person, gets to explore an unpredictable universe. I further claim that this "Turing machine" can engage in much activity that cannot be characterized as the calculating of computable functions. (I place "Turing machine" in quotes here because purists may be correct to insist that what I have described is not a Turing machine at all.) What this is conceptually equivalent to, of course, is a robot with a single-steppable processor for a brain who is unleashed in our universe. I join those who maintain that such a creature can in principle do anything that a human can do, including the experiencing of feelings. Lee Corbin Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=15477