[FRIAM] A question for tomorrow

[Frank Wimberly]

Lee, Surely someone has developed probabilistic Turing Machines which can,
very rarely, make errors.  I am ignorant of the field since 1972 when I
took a course which used Hopcroft and Ullman as a text.

Nick, I agree that your questions are charming.  Your humanity is clearly
seen.  By the way, it occurred to me this morning that the motto of
behaviorists should be, "If it talks like a duck🦆...etc"

Frank

-----------------------------------
Frank Wimberly

My memoir:
https://www.amazon.com/author/frankwimberly

My scientific publications:
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Frank_Wimberly2

Phone (505) 670-9918

On Sat, Apr 27, 2019, 10:59 AM Russ Abbott <russ.abbott at gmail.com> wrote:

> Nick,
>
> One of the most attractive things about your posts is how charming they
> are. They are so well written! Thank you for keeping the discussion at such
> a civilized and enjoyable level -- even when I don't agree with you.
>
> -- Russ Abbott
> Professor, Computer Science
> California State University, Los Angeles
>
>
> On Sat, Apr 27, 2019 at 9:44 AM <lrudolph at meganet.net> wrote:
>
>> Frank writes:
>> > I would hate to have to demonstrate that a modern computer is an
>> instance
>> > of a Turing Machine.  Among other things they usually have multiple
>> > processors as well as memory hierarchies.  But I suppose it could be
>> done,
>> > theoretically.
>>
>> First a passage from a chapter I contributed to a book edited by a
>> graduate student Nick knows (Zack Beckstead); I have cut out a bit in the
>> middle which aims at a different point not under consideration here.
>> ===begin===
>> If talk of “machines” in the context of the human sciences seems out of
>> place, note that Turing (1936) actually introduces his “automatic machine”
>> as a formalization (thoroughly mathematical, though described in
>> suggestive mechanistic terms like “tape” and “scanning”) of “an idealized
>> *human* calculating agent” (Soare, 1996, p. 291; italics in the original),
>> called by Turing a “computer”. [...] As Turing remarks, “It is always
>> possible for the computer to break off from his work, to go away and
>> forget all about it, and later to come back and go on with it” (1936, p.
>> 253). It seems to me that then it must also be “always possible for the
>> computer to break off” and never “come back” (in fact, this often happens
>> in the lives, and invariably upon the deaths, of non-idealized human
>> calculating agents).
>> ===end===
>> Of course Turing's idealization of "an idealized *human* calculating
>> agent" also idealizes away the fact that human computers sometimes make
>> errors. A Turing machine doesn't make errors.  But both the processors and
>> the memory of a modern computer can, and *must* make errors (however
>> rarely, and however good the error-detection).  To at least that extent,
>> then, they are not *perfect* instantiations of Turing machines.  On the
>> other hand, that very fact about them makes them (in some sense) *more*
>> like (actual) human calculating agents.
>>
>> So, Nick, why are you asking what Turing machines think, instead of what
>> modern computers think?  (Be careful how you answer that...)
>>
>>
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> ============================================================
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