[FRIAM] A question for tomorrow

[lrudolph at meganet.net]

Maybe I've missed it, but has no one pointed out that a "Turing Machine"
is a mathematical formalism?  I may be a stick in the mud, but I refuse to
extend the definition of "know" so far as to make "A Turing Machine knows
[something]" a meaningful statement.  You might as well ask what a Goedel
Enumeration knows, or what The Classification of Finite Simple Groups
knows.  Hell, what does the integer 1 know???

Now maybe in you-alls' circles, "Turing Machine" is used to refer to some
kinds of physical implementations of particular Turing Machines.  But
that's a pernicious identification that can only lead to tears.