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There are other alternative paths of technology that we could've went down. A turing machine is isomorphic to lambda calculus and possibly isomorphic to many ot

There are other alternative paths of technology that we could've went down. A turing machine is isomorphic to lambda calculus and possibly isomorphic to many other machines. Like how javascript is an arbitrary way to do frontend programming, it's possible the current computing paradigm is also arbitrary.

Ididntdothis 7y ago
“it's possible the current computing paradigm is also arbitrary.” I think that’s true. Makes me wonder how things would look if you redesigned things with today’s knowledge if you didn’t have to worry about existing infrastructure.
- crimsonalucard 7y ago
  Not just that. Arbitrary choices are made at every level of computing from even logic below the turing machine all the way up to javascript for browsers. Imagine if they decided to use 3 voltages to represent numbers. Instead of 3.5 volts for 1 and 0 volts for 0 what if we had a trinary representation 5 volts for 2, 3.5 for 1 and 0 volts for 0. Or what if analog computing took off instead. Instead of trying to make everything digital we built machines that are functions of analog voltage waveforms and poured all of our abilities into reducing noise instead of upping clock speed. Is the technology we use now the result of arbitrary choices made out of pure luck or given enough time all civilizations will develop digital computing due to inherit limitations of the physical world.
  - nradov 7y ago
    No need that imagine. Ternary computers have been built. They do work but are less practical than binary. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ternary_computer https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ternary_computer
    - crimsonalucard 7y ago
      Yes I know. I'm saying what if we had put all our resources into this or some other form of computing. They have analog computers made out of gears as well.
    - Ididntdothis 7y ago
      Question is : are they really less practical or have we just put a lot of effort into binary and with the same effort ternary would be better?
      - nradov 7y ago
        I'm not a semiconductor engineer but it's hard to see how ternary logic could work reliably with modern low voltage 7nm process chips.
      - crimsonalucard 7y ago
        There's no clear benefit either.
      - jdsully 7y ago
        The beauty of digital is you are avoiding the “linear” portion of transistors and are always running them saturated. A ternary machine would require running the transistors in the linear region - which ultra small transistors are terrible at. There are alternative designs using +/0/- saturated signaling but those have higher voltages and larger transistor counts. I’ve played around with linear designs which can indeed use fewer parts but you need high quality transistors and they’d still be slow. https://hackaday.io/project/3628-trinity/log/11995-2-transistor-carry-function https://hackaday.io/project/3628-trinity/log/11995-2-transis...
    - roelschroeven 7y ago
      The first modern, electronic ternary computer was Setun, built in 1958 in the Soviet Union. It is claimed that it had notable advantages over the binary computers which eventually replaced it, such as lower electricity consumption and lower production cost. But as far as I understand it, the Setun actually used 2 bits to record 1 trit, according to the Google Translated English of the Russian Wikipedia article (https://ru.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Сетунь_(компьютер) https://ru.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Сетунь_(компьютер): "Based on the Gutenmacher binary ferritodiode cell, which is an electromagnetic proximity switch based on transformer-type magnetic amplifiers , N. P. Brusentsov developed a ternary ferritodiode cell [1] [2] , which operated in a two-bit ternary code, i.e. one trit was recorded in two binary digits, the fourth state of two binary digits was not used. ... Two-bit binary encoded ternary digits (2-Bit BinaryCodedTernary, 2B BCT representation, “two-wire”) using all 4 out of 4 possible codes (two out of 4 codes encode the same ternary digit out of 3)." Maybe the memory used actual trits, while the control logic used bits underneed? From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ternary_computer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ternary_computer it's not clear to me if there ever were computers that used real ternary logic, instead of just ternary memory and/or ternary logic implemented on top of binary logic.
- deleted 7y ago
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dwohnitmok 7y ago
Not just possibly. Here's a non-exhaustive list of models of computation that are all equivalent. + Turing machines + Lambda calculus + General recursive functions + Mu-recursive functions + SKI calculus + Pi calculus + Register machines + The semantics of essentially every mainstream general programming language This remarkable profusion of equivalences is the main reason why the Church-Turing Thesis (an informal statement that our intuitive notion of computation coincides with Turing machines and/or the lambda calculus) is commonly accepted.
- deleted 7y ago
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Ididntdothis 7y ago

“it's possible the current computing paradigm is also arbitrary.” I think that’s true. Makes me wonder how things would look if you redesigned things with today’s knowledge if you didn’t have to worry about existing infrastructure.

crimsonalucard 7y ago
Not just that. Arbitrary choices are made at every level of computing from even logic below the turing machine all the way up to javascript for browsers. Imagine if they decided to use 3 voltages to represent numbers. Instead of 3.5 volts for 1 and 0 volts for 0 what if we had a trinary representation 5 volts for 2, 3.5 for 1 and 0 volts for 0. Or what if analog computing took off instead. Instead of trying to make everything digital we built machines that are functions of analog voltage waveforms and poured all of our abilities into reducing noise instead of upping clock speed. Is the technology we use now the result of arbitrary choices made out of pure luck or given enough time all civilizations will develop digital computing due to inherit limitations of the physical world.
- nradov 7y ago
  No need that imagine. Ternary computers have been built. They do work but are less practical than binary. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ternary_computer https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ternary_computer
  - crimsonalucard 7y ago
    Yes I know. I'm saying what if we had put all our resources into this or some other form of computing. They have analog computers made out of gears as well.
  - Ididntdothis 7y ago
    Question is : are they really less practical or have we just put a lot of effort into binary and with the same effort ternary would be better?
    - nradov 7y ago
      I'm not a semiconductor engineer but it's hard to see how ternary logic could work reliably with modern low voltage 7nm process chips.
    - crimsonalucard 7y ago
      There's no clear benefit either.
    - jdsully 7y ago
      The beauty of digital is you are avoiding the “linear” portion of transistors and are always running them saturated. A ternary machine would require running the transistors in the linear region - which ultra small transistors are terrible at. There are alternative designs using +/0/- saturated signaling but those have higher voltages and larger transistor counts. I’ve played around with linear designs which can indeed use fewer parts but you need high quality transistors and they’d still be slow. https://hackaday.io/project/3628-trinity/log/11995-2-transistor-carry-function https://hackaday.io/project/3628-trinity/log/11995-2-transis...
  - roelschroeven 7y ago
    The first modern, electronic ternary computer was Setun, built in 1958 in the Soviet Union. It is claimed that it had notable advantages over the binary computers which eventually replaced it, such as lower electricity consumption and lower production cost. But as far as I understand it, the Setun actually used 2 bits to record 1 trit, according to the Google Translated English of the Russian Wikipedia article (https://ru.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Сетунь_(компьютер) https://ru.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Сетунь_(компьютер): "Based on the Gutenmacher binary ferritodiode cell, which is an electromagnetic proximity switch based on transformer-type magnetic amplifiers , N. P. Brusentsov developed a ternary ferritodiode cell [1] [2] , which operated in a two-bit ternary code, i.e. one trit was recorded in two binary digits, the fourth state of two binary digits was not used. ... Two-bit binary encoded ternary digits (2-Bit BinaryCodedTernary, 2B BCT representation, “two-wire”) using all 4 out of 4 possible codes (two out of 4 codes encode the same ternary digit out of 3)." Maybe the memory used actual trits, while the control logic used bits underneed? From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ternary_computer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ternary_computer it's not clear to me if there ever were computers that used real ternary logic, instead of just ternary memory and/or ternary logic implemented on top of binary logic.
deleted 7y ago
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dwohnitmok 7y ago

Not just possibly. Here's a non-exhaustive list of models of computation that are all equivalent. + Turing machines + Lambda calculus + General recursive functions + Mu-recursive functions + SKI calculus + Pi calculus + Register machines + The semantics of essentially every mainstream general programming language This remarkable profusion of equivalences is the main reason why the Church-Turing Thesis (an informal statement that our intuitive notion of computation coincides with Turing machines and/or the lambda calculus) is commonly accepted.

deleted 7y ago
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