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Gave this a brief skim, and it's paradoxically both highfalutin and often times plain wrong at the same time. > Computers are universal machines. I use this te
by dvt 5y ago
Gave this a brief skim, and it's paradoxically both highfalutin and often times plain wrong at the same time.
> Computers are universal machines. I use this term in a precise sense: anything that can be computed in the universe can in principle be computed by the kind of machine that we already have, given enough memory and time
Yeah, this precise sense is precisely wrong. There are plenty of things computers can't do (and will never be able to do), including (probably) be conscious (see Searle), but maybe even more difficult to swallow, generally compute entropy[1], or compute the spectral gap[2].
[1] https://www.math.iupui.edu/~mmisiure/open/JM1.pdf https://www.math.iupui.edu/~mmisiure/open/JM1.pdf
[2] https://arxiv.org/pdf/1502.04135.pdf https://arxiv.org/pdf/1502.04135.pdf
- davidivadavid 5y agoHis point is probably along the lines of "any machine emulating a Turing machine can compute all computable functions." Which of course doesn't mean that there aren't uncomputable functions.
- ctdonath 5y agoHe’s indulging the common confusion of theory with practice. Just because something is computable in theory doesn’t mean it’s computable in practice.
- civilized 5y agoHe didn't say there is nothing computers can't do. Read again.
- jkhdigital 5y agoI haven’t looked at the book, but I don’t interpret that quote to mean computers “can do anything” which seems to be your interpretation. Your second link, for example, seems to be about the undecidability of some problem. The author’s quote clearly refers to computable problems so this undecidable problem is not under discussion here. And I’m sure the author could be both highfalutin and plain wrong a lot, but you just picked a poor exemplar.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- hungryforcodes 5y agoThe key word here is "computed". Computers definitely do that -- it's in the name.
- rendall 5y ago> (see Searle) I don't know why people cite Searle. The "Chinese Room Metaphor" is the only real reason people cite him, and it has such clear and obvious flaws that I suspect the only reason it got any attention at all is that it's fun to poke holes in.