Re: Can we agree on what a machine is?

Ricardo Ribeiro Gudwin (gudwin@DCA.FEE.UNICAMP.BR)
Mon, 1 Feb 1999 10:11:32 -0200


Norman K. McPhail wrote:

> I want to make sure I understand what you are saying here. Is it just
> that our machine will always get bound up in the infinite tape problem.
> We would interpret this to mean that it is NOT a truly universal
> simulator or model maker?

There is an interesting thing in humans that always amazed me ... how can we
understand the infinite without going there ? How are we able to fully
understand
things (e.g. UTMs) that are not realizable ? How are we able to build logical
models
if there is no such thing as "logical model" in reality ?Ricardo
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