Re: Poll: Are PCs Turing Machines?

luiroto_at_yahoo.com
Date: 12/16/04 

Date: 16 Dec 2004 07:04:36 -0800

Stephen Harris wrote:
> <spinoza1111@yahoo.com> wrote in message
> news:1103022608.996483.99650@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
> >
> >> > Therefore, monster "problems", of the sort solved by TMs and not
> >> > solvable by PCs, do not exist.
> >>
> >> So the only problems that "exist" are the ones that are solvable
by
> >> currently existing computers? The problem of factoring a 30 digit
> > number,
> >> for example, didn't exist until computers were capable of solving
it?
> > The
> >
> > Correct. If computer science is applied mathematics, then it is
part of
> > history. Its problem set is limited to problems that in principle
can
> > be solved. Of course, this set expands but owing to the daily
struggles
> > of computer scientists with material, concrete realities, to
> > deliberately lapse into Marxist phrasing. They don't "exist" in
> > Platonic la-la land prior to the date at which they are empirically
> > solvable.
> >
>
> Mathematical Platonists say that mathematics existed before
> even the earth existed and there were humans or computers.
>
> Take probability theory. This is an abstraction like a Turing
Machine,
> which means it is non-physical. Saying it does not physically exist
is
> not the same as saying it does not exist as an idea. The idea arises
> from the physical brain but does not have to correspond to anything
in
> physical reality, for example unicorns with magical (non-causal)
horns.
>
> People say unicorns and other non-existant physical ideas, exist in
> the imagination. That is not an endorsement of Platonism which is
> another notion. Your writing suggests that abtract non-physical
> notions are necessarily claimed to have existence in Platonic la-la
land.
> Only Platonists believe this. Most people however, do not believe
abstract
> or imaginary ideas have anything to do Platonism or may not
> have even heard of Platonism. There is no requirement that a product
> of the imagination must some day have physical existence. That is
> called normal thinking not Platonism.
>
> Claiming that a TM is abstract has nothing to do with Platonism,
> that is a strawman argument. Only Platonists believe that
abstractions
> really exist in some Platonic realm. Regular people who talk about
> abstract notions reject such a claim of Platonism. Rejecting
Platonism
> does not mean you can't talk about possible existence, whether or not
> such possible existence will actually be physically realized.
>
> Problems that can "in principle" be solved or approximate the
behavior
> of something non-physical when it occurs are found in probability
theory.
> Probability is used to predict future events that have not yet
happened.
> Those events may never happen. Probability theory talks about
abstract
> events like flipping a coin a million times and determining the
number of
> heads and tails. That may be physically possible. But the Central
Limit
> Theorem can be applied to predicting the result of a billion,
billion,
> billion times, some huge finite number of times that cannot be
physically
> realized in the physical existence of the universe before heat death.
> Making some theoretical calculation which predicts an outcome in a
> physically impossible situation has nothing to do with Platonism. It
would
> be a misunderstanding or misapplication of the Platonic philosophy.
> Because Platonists might think this situation belongs to the Platonic
> realm really has nothing to do with forcing this belief onto others.
>
> PCs are physical and have all physical parts in a physical universe.
> TMs are abtract, non-physical ideas, which do not exist in the
> physical universe. The concept of a TM arose from a physical brain
> but that idea has no physical representation and is quite unlikely to
> ever have a possible physical representation. Because the imaginary
> TM tape has properties not found in the physical universe. And that
> is *not* a claim that the tape exists in a Platonic realm.
>
> Talk about an infinite universe is talk about the physical universe
> and is irrelevant to the turing tape because it does not have
> physical existence. The TM tape has no requirement for a physically
> infinite universe. It has no physical requirements whatsoever.
Besides,
> even if the universe expands forever, it does not mean that more
> matter is created. It is the current position of Physics that no more
> matter is created, that the present amount of matter becomes less
dense.
> And it is matter, not space, which makes up and limits the substance
> available in the physical universe needed to construct physical
memory
> for PCs, which performs a similar function to the magical TM tape.
>
> It is quite easy to believe that PCs are physical and so are not TMs,
> while thinking Platonism is false. Platonism is not idea that the
universe
> existed before humans evolved, constructed physical machines and
> entertained thoughts about imaginary events and conditions or other
> humanly generated thought inventions. Platonism is one possible view
about
> universals:
> "The oldest use of the term "realism" comes from Medieval
interpretations
> of Greek philosophy. Here "realism" is contrasted with
"conceptualism" and
> "nominalism". This can be called "realism about universals."
Universals are
> terms or properties that can be applied to many things, rather than
> denoting a single specific individual--for example, red, beauty,
five, or
> dog, as opposed to Socrates or Athens. Realism holds that these
universals
> really exist, independently and somehow prior to the world; it is
associated
> with Plato. Conceptualism holds that they exist, but only insofar as
they
> are instantiated in specific things; they do not exist separately.
> Nominalism holds that universals do not "exist" at all; they are no
more
> than words we use to describe specific objects, they do not name
anything.
> This particular dispute over realism is largely moot in contemporary
> philosophy, and has been for centuries.
>
> In another sense realism is contrasted with both idealism and
materialism
> and considered synonymous with weak dualism. In still a third, and
very
> contemporary sense realism is contrasted with anti-realism.
>
> Both these disputes are often carried out relative to some specific
area:
> one might, for example, be a realist about physical matter but an
> anti-realist about ethics.
>
> Increasingly these last disputes, too, are rejected as misleading,
and
> some philosophers prefer to call the kind of realism espoused there
> "metaphyiscal realism," and eschew the whole debate in favour of
simple
> "naturalism" or "natural realism", which is not so much a theory as
the
> position that these debates are ill-conceived if not incoherent, and
> that there is no more to deciding what is really real than simply
taking
> our words at face value." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Realism
>
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> >They don't "exist" in
> > Platonic la-la land prior to the date at which they are empirically
> > solvable.
>
> SH: This seems similar to Conceptualism or moderate realism later.*
> "Conceptualism holds that they exist, but only insofar as they are
> instantiated in specific things; they do not exist separately."
>
> I think the universe existed prior to humans and did not need
> mathematics to continue operation or evolve humans. I think
> mathematics did not exist in the universe prior to human invention
> and that mathematics is a tool, like so many others humans have
> invented, to describe and predict reality gathered by human sensory
> perceptions of reality. That means humans can imagine abstract
> mechanisms for predicting reality which may or may not match reality.
> Mathematical predictions of reality have changed since Ptolemy, to
> Newton, to General Relativity, to Quantum theory. The human mind
> has evolved to register motion, changes in motion in linked events
> over a period of time: causality. But the notion of causality is
itself
> a human evention, the universe certainly existed before humans
> evolved into it and it functioned without a name of causality being
> applied to it. Causality did not create the universe. The universe
> created humans with minds who invented words to make sense
> of what they perceived. Platonism may seem like a religious belief,
> but I don't think it purports to explain the existence or creation of
> the universe. But of universals which they claim exist independently
> of the human perception of universal patterns. But what humans
> perceive is indistinguishable from an origin of the independent
status
> of universals from an origin of dependent status of universals which
> comes from the source of human invention. From Wikipedia"
>
> "The epistemological commitment of scientific realism is that
acceptance of
> a scientific theory is belief that what it says about unobservables
is true
> or approximately true. The semantic commitment of scientific realism
is that
> scientific theories are semantically literal, that is, that the
language of
> scientific theories is not interperetable into language about some
other
> domain without change in meaning. The normative commitment of
scientific
> realism is that scientific theories aim at truth about unobservables.
>
> A further tenet of scientific realism is that scientific knowledge is
> progressive in nature, that is, it builds on previous understanding."
>
> SH: Platonism cannot be scientifically tested. But abstract theories
> can be experimentally confirmed. The TM is not an abstract theory
> about physical reality due to its use of a turing tape. It is not
testable.
> It is a conjectured behavior for an non-physical invented object. The
turing
> tape doesn't cover the same territory as the Church-Turing thesis.
> Naturalism opposes the concept of Platonism.
>
> Wikipeda again:
> "Naturalism is any of several philosophical stances, typically those
> descended from materialism and pragmatism, that reject the validity
> of explanations or theories making use of entities inaccessible to
natural
> science. [SH: There would not be any inhabitants of the Platonic
realm.]
>
> As described by W. V. Quine, who is in large measure responsible for
> naturalism's current pre-eminence among American philosophers, it is
> the position that there is no higher tribunal for truth than natural
> science itself. There is no better method than the scientific method
> for judging the claims of science, and there is neither any need nor
> any place for a "first philosophy," such as (abstract) metaphysics
> or epistemology, that could stand behind and justify science or the
> scientific method. Therefore philosophy should feel free to make use
> of the findings of scientists in its own pursuit, while also feeling
> free to offer criticism when those claims are ungrounded, confused,
> or inconsistent: philosophy becomes "continuous with" science.
> (Naturalism is not a dogmatic belief that science is entirely
correct;
> it is the position that science is the best explanation we have. We
> have to start somewhere in talking about the world, and we don't have
> better evidence for anything other than science; yet as we go along
> we can still change it as we use it.)
>
> Methodological naturalism (MN) or Scientific Naturalism is a
> philosophical tenet that states that life exists in a single
> natural universe, as supported by science. MN describes life
> as a mechanically unfolding process; where everything is caused
> and possesses an effect.
>
> MN believes that each human being is an unfolding natural process,
> and every aspect of that process is caused, and is a cause itself.
> It states that what we are and do is connected to the rest of the
> world because our bodies and minds are shaped by conditions that
> precede us and surround us.
>
> *Moderate realists, a variety of realists, hold that there is no
> heaven in which universals live, but rather universals are located
> in space and time wherever they are manifest. Now, recall that a
> universal, like greenness, is supposed to be a single thing.
> Nominalists find it weird that there could be a single thing that
> exists in a bunch of places all at once. The realist maintains
> that all the instances of greenness are held together by the
> exemplification relation, but, again, this relation seems mysterious.
>
> The resemblance nominalist will reply that 'cat' applies to both
> cats in virtue of either the fact that Fluffy and Kitzler resemble
> an exemplar cat closely enough to be classed together with it as
> members of its kind, or that they differ from each other
> (and other cats)quite less than they differ from other things, and
> this warrants classing them together. Some resemblance nominalists
> will concede that the resemblance relation is itself a universal,
> but is the only universal you need. This betrays the spirit of
> nominalism. Others argue that each resemblance relation is a
> particular, and is a resemblance relation simply in virtue of its
> resemblance to other resemblance relations. This generates an
> infinite regress, but many agree that it is not vicious.
>
> One way to be a nominalist without being an "ostrich nominalist" like
> the predicate nominalists ("ostrich" because they seem to simply
stick
> their heads in the sand and pretend there isn't a problem--the phrase
> is D. M. Armstrong's) is to build a theory of resemblance nominalism
> on a theory of tropes. A trope is a particular instance of a
property,
> like the specific greenness of this here shirt, or the singular
coyness
> of Gwyneth's smile. One might argue that there is a primitive,
objective
> resemblance relation that holds among like tropes. But that seems
> arbitrary. Another route is to argue that all apparent tropes are
> constructed out of more primitive tropes and that the most primitive
> tropes are the entities of complete physics. Primitive trope
resemblance
> may thus be accounted for in terms of causal indiscernibility. Two
> tropes are exactly resembling if switching them would make no
difference to
> the events in which they are taking part. Varying degrees of
resemblance at
> the macro level can be explained by varying degrees of
> resemblance at the micro level, and micro-level resemblance is
explained in
> terms of something no less robustly physical than causal power.
> Armstrong, perhaps the most prominent contemporary realist, argues
that such
> a trope-based variant of nominalism has promise, but holds that it is
unable
> to account for the laws of nature in the way his theory of
> universals can.
>
> Ian Hacking has also argued that much what is called "social
> constructionism" of science in contemporary times is actually
> motivated by an unstated nominalist metaphysical view. For this
> reason, he claims, scientists and constructionists tend to
> "shout past each other."
>
> SH: It seems to me spinoza makes some assumptions about what
> is entailed in some adversarial postings which are not implicit. The
> problem of universals being adequately explained by adopting
> moderate realism is a philosophical postion, not a matter of fact,
> and is not impervious to doubts about its plausibility. Not adopting
> moderate realism does not require jumping to the side of Platonism.
>
> Why How is When,
> Stephen

Nil of that bla-bla have any conection with the question:"Are PC's
examples of Turing Machines?" .That author is a maniac-compulsive
writer. I remind he, that this is mathematical forum not a tournament
of verbosity.

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