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