4 ms·

No it isn't. With some contrieved meaning of the cards, which has nothing to do with the "meaning of the card" in Magic the game, like "State B, Colour 16: Sta

No it isn't. With some contrieved meaning of the cards, which has nothing to do with the "meaning of the card" in Magic the game, like "State B, Colour 16: Stay in state B, colour this space 18, move one step right." it recreates a complicated and arcane turing machine.

gipp 9y ago
That's like saying a file on your computer is just a "contrived meaning" of the way magnetic domains are arranged on some glass platters in your hard drive.
- _Codemonkeyism 9y ago
  It's like saying parking cars are turing complete, if a blue car means X and a red car means Y etc. 'Reanimator 17B actually says "Whenever a Rat (R0) dies, make a Sliver (S1M).' The linked page is not using the rules of Magic the gathering or the texts on the cards, but uses it's own rules what cards mean. The game rules of magic the gathering are not turing complete, because the linked post is not talking about Magic the Gathering game.
  - gipp 9y ago
    Those aren't new rules for the cards that they're just contriving out of thin air. When it says that's what it "actually says", it means that's what the net effect of the card's actual text is in the environment that's been set up. It's just a rhetorical shortcut to help explain how the system works. All the cards are using the correct text as normal.
  - dsp1234 9y ago
    This is like saying, "Draw go" isn't talking about MTG. It's shorthand for all of the steps that you'd need to complete. Just like someone playing an Eggs deck is going to say "Casting KCI + IW, draw 2, float 2" or "Here is the main loop. I'm going to do that until I hit banefire, then hit you for infinite damage." What's interesting is actual MTG gameplay uses a HUGE amount of shortcuts on every play, because saying every single thing you and the opponent have to do during each step and phase would be incredibly time consuming.
    - crankylinuxuser 9y ago
      Well, that gets weird. It can have shortcuts and also won't have shortcuts. If you play Commander or multiplayer, then its usually a heck of a lot less formal. Ive also played some local tournament games where the players were good-natured and we all just had fun. Then I've played some tournaments locally and at Gencon that were methodical and clockwork style "Please indicate what you did, step by ste-COUNTER". Or you get the priority police up and running, where you have to explicitly pass priority. I hate those games with a passion - it just drains the fun out via rules-lawyering. I've not played in a few years, primarily because the game was feeling much more like 'loot crates' that I've railed against prior. And with $3.50/pack, I didn't feel like I was getting enjoyment. You either buy buy buy, or get left in the dust and destroyed in games because you didnt buy buy buy.
      - literallycancer 9y ago
        >"Please indicate what you did, step by ste-COUNTER" What's the advantage over simply specifying the moment you wanted to react out of the last batch of actions (like a normal person)? If the opponent skips too many steps and gives up some critical information as a result -- his problem.
        mattnewton 9y ago
        Because that leads to bad feels; did you counter X because you know I have Y in my hand now? I always try to explicitly pass priority after spells even in causal settings when I mean to.
        crankylinuxuser 9y ago
        In a way, its an iterated prisoner's dilemma. Sure, I can construct a "infinite beatdown deck" that you lose 99% of the time. And guess what? I'll win. And that next game, they'll say "ditch that deck or you aren't playing". These days, I play explicit decks that have a neat theme and good win conditions (I have 2 decks left). They dont use infinite combos (they win, but are unfun), and I play to have a good time. If I lose, it was because I had some good threats and a blast of a game.
tdb7893 9y ago
Isn't what states "mean" irrelevant to whether it's a Turing machine? I was under the impression that as long as it can simulate a Turing machine (even an arcane or complicated one) is Turing complete and the state could be stored in anything (it's not like electricity has some special property that makes it better for Turing machines)
- pbhjpbhj 9y ago
  >it's not like electricity has some special property that makes it better for Turing machines Transmission, storage with magnetic interactions of electrical actions, small size of components, speed of transmission -- aren't these properties that make for more practical Turing machines? Parked cars are going to take ages to do anything useful with, no. (IANAComputerScientist)
  - klank 9y ago
    More practical, yes. However, I believe the original poster's intent was that neither one is a "preferred" implementation from the perspective of the concept itself. There's no necessary tie between a Turing machine and electromagnetic fields. It's just that's what is easiest for us humans to use to implement it.
  - lou1306 9y ago
    Keywords "practical" and "useful". No one advocates parking-lot Turing machines for actual usage, but the fact is electronics only gives you speed and size improvements, while expressiveness remains the same.
  - dsp1234 9y ago
    This is just a miscommunication of what "better" means in this context. No one disputes that a modern computer implementing a Turing machine is going to calculate faster than manually manipulating MTG cards. However, better here means 'more expressive'. Turing completeness is concerned with whether or not a computational system is 'universal' or not. In other words, whether that computational system can compute everything that another computational system could. If two systems can both be shown to simulate a Turing machine, then that means that those systems could compute the same exact set of things (given enough time). So with regards to expressiveness (or the things a system could theoretically compute), since a modern computer can implement a Turing machine and a MTG game can implement a Turing machine, they are both the same, and thus neither is 'better'. In other words, the addition of electricity doesn't effect what a system could theoretically compute.
aaachilless 9y ago
Words they've used like "State B, Colour 16: Stay in state B, colour this space 18, move one step right" are just mnemonics, for the sake of keeping track of information relevant to Turing completeness, that could be replaced by a description of whatever is actually happening in the game.
- _Codemonkeyism 9y ago
  "colour this space 18" Thanks, didn't know "colour this space 18" was a concept in MTG now, I haven't played for 2 decades I assume (stopped before Legends, no clue what came afterwards).

gipp 9y ago

That's like saying a file on your computer is just a "contrived meaning" of the way magnetic domains are arranged on some glass platters in your hard drive.

_Codemonkeyism 9y ago
It's like saying parking cars are turing complete, if a blue car means X and a red car means Y etc. 'Reanimator 17B actually says "Whenever a Rat (R0) dies, make a Sliver (S1M).' The linked page is not using the rules of Magic the gathering or the texts on the cards, but uses it's own rules what cards mean. The game rules of magic the gathering are not turing complete, because the linked post is not talking about Magic the Gathering game.
- gipp 9y ago
  Those aren't new rules for the cards that they're just contriving out of thin air. When it says that's what it "actually says", it means that's what the net effect of the card's actual text is in the environment that's been set up. It's just a rhetorical shortcut to help explain how the system works. All the cards are using the correct text as normal.
- dsp1234 9y ago
  This is like saying, "Draw go" isn't talking about MTG. It's shorthand for all of the steps that you'd need to complete. Just like someone playing an Eggs deck is going to say "Casting KCI + IW, draw 2, float 2" or "Here is the main loop. I'm going to do that until I hit banefire, then hit you for infinite damage." What's interesting is actual MTG gameplay uses a HUGE amount of shortcuts on every play, because saying every single thing you and the opponent have to do during each step and phase would be incredibly time consuming.
  - crankylinuxuser 9y ago
    Well, that gets weird. It can have shortcuts and also won't have shortcuts. If you play Commander or multiplayer, then its usually a heck of a lot less formal. Ive also played some local tournament games where the players were good-natured and we all just had fun. Then I've played some tournaments locally and at Gencon that were methodical and clockwork style "Please indicate what you did, step by ste-COUNTER". Or you get the priority police up and running, where you have to explicitly pass priority. I hate those games with a passion - it just drains the fun out via rules-lawyering. I've not played in a few years, primarily because the game was feeling much more like 'loot crates' that I've railed against prior. And with $3.50/pack, I didn't feel like I was getting enjoyment. You either buy buy buy, or get left in the dust and destroyed in games because you didnt buy buy buy.
    - literallycancer 9y ago
      >"Please indicate what you did, step by ste-COUNTER" What's the advantage over simply specifying the moment you wanted to react out of the last batch of actions (like a normal person)? If the opponent skips too many steps and gives up some critical information as a result -- his problem.
      - mattnewton 9y ago
        Because that leads to bad feels; did you counter X because you know I have Y in my hand now? I always try to explicitly pass priority after spells even in causal settings when I mean to.
        crankylinuxuser 9y ago
        In a way, its an iterated prisoner's dilemma. Sure, I can construct a "infinite beatdown deck" that you lose 99% of the time. And guess what? I'll win. And that next game, they'll say "ditch that deck or you aren't playing". These days, I play explicit decks that have a neat theme and good win conditions (I have 2 decks left). They dont use infinite combos (they win, but are unfun), and I play to have a good time. If I lose, it was because I had some good threats and a blast of a game.

tdb7893 9y ago

Isn't what states "mean" irrelevant to whether it's a Turing machine? I was under the impression that as long as it can simulate a Turing machine (even an arcane or complicated one) is Turing complete and the state could be stored in anything (it's not like electricity has some special property that makes it better for Turing machines)

pbhjpbhj 9y ago
>it's not like electricity has some special property that makes it better for Turing machines Transmission, storage with magnetic interactions of electrical actions, small size of components, speed of transmission -- aren't these properties that make for more practical Turing machines? Parked cars are going to take ages to do anything useful with, no. (IANAComputerScientist)
- klank 9y ago
  More practical, yes. However, I believe the original poster's intent was that neither one is a "preferred" implementation from the perspective of the concept itself. There's no necessary tie between a Turing machine and electromagnetic fields. It's just that's what is easiest for us humans to use to implement it.
- lou1306 9y ago
  Keywords "practical" and "useful". No one advocates parking-lot Turing machines for actual usage, but the fact is electronics only gives you speed and size improvements, while expressiveness remains the same.
- dsp1234 9y ago
  This is just a miscommunication of what "better" means in this context. No one disputes that a modern computer implementing a Turing machine is going to calculate faster than manually manipulating MTG cards. However, better here means 'more expressive'. Turing completeness is concerned with whether or not a computational system is 'universal' or not. In other words, whether that computational system can compute everything that another computational system could. If two systems can both be shown to simulate a Turing machine, then that means that those systems could compute the same exact set of things (given enough time). So with regards to expressiveness (or the things a system could theoretically compute), since a modern computer can implement a Turing machine and a MTG game can implement a Turing machine, they are both the same, and thus neither is 'better'. In other words, the addition of electricity doesn't effect what a system could theoretically compute.

aaachilless 9y ago

Words they've used like "State B, Colour 16: Stay in state B, colour this space 18, move one step right" are just mnemonics, for the sake of keeping track of information relevant to Turing completeness, that could be replaced by a description of whatever is actually happening in the game.

_Codemonkeyism 9y ago
"colour this space 18" Thanks, didn't know "colour this space 18" was a concept in MTG now, I haven't played for 2 decades I assume (stopped before Legends, no clue what came afterwards).