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> Why isn’t your computer a Turing Machine? The Turing Machine tape is infinite.

leroy-is-here 3y ago
The Turing Machine is just an idea with which to argue. The numbers are infinite, but if I am holding two peaches, I am holding two.
- anonzzzies 3y ago
  You asked why the computer is not a Turing machine and gp correctly gave 1 example of the definition of a Turing machine which proves your computer is not a Turing machine.
  - leroy-is-here 3y ago
    I see that I need to explain this differently. By being on Hacker News, I assume you can program. Have you not ever made an abstraction? The Turing Machine is just an abstraction. It is the Class and individual real machines are the Objects. I’m not sure why people are even hung up on using theory to understand something.
    - anonzzzies 3y ago
      I see that I need to explain this differently. You use an abstraction that is well known here to say something; someone says that this abstraction is not the concrete thing (a computer is not a Turing machine). You ask why not and someone tells you A reason. Then you still claim something else? I understand your reasoning but you asked the question and it was answered correctly.
      - leroy-is-here 3y ago
        Many people think of Turing Machines and see only the abstraction. But what Alan Turing created was a _process_, a method, for creating what we call Turing Machines. The process, the abstraction, is not a Turing Machine (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Treachery_of_Images https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Treachery_of_Images). The machines created by the process are Turing Machines. The process of creating these machines is the crucial part because if a singular process can create infinitely many machines, then those machines must bear some sort of commonality. This is what computer science is hoping to study, but we constantly get distracted by studying details of individual machines, individual numbers. And often, we confuse ourselves into thinking we haven't found any commonality at all -- that our machines _aren't_ Turing machines! But of course, this is incorrect. When Turing was creating the machine to counter the Enigma Machine, do you think he just thought of it as a "computer"? or did he think of it as a machine created by his process, a Turing Machine? (though he probably wouldn't have used that term) Edit: a concrete refutation of your claim that computers are not Turing Machines would then be to create a machine that solves the Halting Problem. Turing Machines cannot solve the Halting Problem so if our computers are not Turing Machines then they must be able. We arrived at the Halting Problem because of our study of Turing Machines as a class of machines and our computers are within that class.

The Turing Machine is just an idea with which to argue. The numbers are infinite, but if I am holding two peaches, I am holding two.

anonzzzies 3y ago
You asked why the computer is not a Turing machine and gp correctly gave 1 example of the definition of a Turing machine which proves your computer is not a Turing machine.
- leroy-is-here 3y ago
  I see that I need to explain this differently. By being on Hacker News, I assume you can program. Have you not ever made an abstraction? The Turing Machine is just an abstraction. It is the Class and individual real machines are the Objects. I’m not sure why people are even hung up on using theory to understand something.
  - anonzzzies 3y ago
    I see that I need to explain this differently. You use an abstraction that is well known here to say something; someone says that this abstraction is not the concrete thing (a computer is not a Turing machine). You ask why not and someone tells you A reason. Then you still claim something else? I understand your reasoning but you asked the question and it was answered correctly.
    - leroy-is-here 3y ago
      Many people think of Turing Machines and see only the abstraction. But what Alan Turing created was a _process_, a method, for creating what we call Turing Machines. The process, the abstraction, is not a Turing Machine (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Treachery_of_Images https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Treachery_of_Images). The machines created by the process are Turing Machines. The process of creating these machines is the crucial part because if a singular process can create infinitely many machines, then those machines must bear some sort of commonality. This is what computer science is hoping to study, but we constantly get distracted by studying details of individual machines, individual numbers. And often, we confuse ourselves into thinking we haven't found any commonality at all -- that our machines _aren't_ Turing machines! But of course, this is incorrect. When Turing was creating the machine to counter the Enigma Machine, do you think he just thought of it as a "computer"? or did he think of it as a machine created by his process, a Turing Machine? (though he probably wouldn't have used that term) Edit: a concrete refutation of your claim that computers are not Turing Machines would then be to create a machine that solves the Halting Problem. Turing Machines cannot solve the Halting Problem so if our computers are not Turing Machines then they must be able. We arrived at the Halting Problem because of our study of Turing Machines as a class of machines and our computers are within that class.