@tyrell_turing@fediscience.org
2023-09-13 21:25 UTC
@yoginho@spore.social
Remember, as the very article from the Philosophy Encyclopedia describes, the original goal of both Turing and Church was simply to formalise the idea of an "effective method", i.e. a mechanical way of solving a problem.
If the Church-Turing thesis holds, then any problem that a mechanical (i.e. purely physical) system can solve represents a computable function, and the object implementing it is engaged in a computation.
Replies (1)
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@yoginho@spore.social 2023-09-14 06:06
@tyrell_turing@fediscience.org Did you know that this argument only came up with Deutsch and Lloyd in the 1980/90s? Before that, nobody (including Church & Turing) ever thought that it would be reasonable to apply the term "computation" to physics. So, no: it's you, not me who's misreading Turing. Effective computation means literally "something a human being can do by rote" (i.e. calculating, scheduling, optimizing). In Church & Turing's 30s papers, a computer is a (usually underpaid, female) human.