Hal Finney, You say, ". . . the Church Thesis, which I would paraphrase as saying that there are no physical processes more computationally powerful than a Turing machine, or in other words that the universe could in principle be simulated on a TM. I wouldn't be surprised if most people who believe that minds can be simulated on TMs also believe that everything can be simulated on a TM."
I'm out of my depth here, but this doesn't make sense to me. My understanding is that the Turing Machine is a hypothetical device. If one could be built that operated at faster-than-light or infinite speed, maybe it could, in principle, simulate the universe. However, this isn't possible. Does this mean that the Church Thesis, hence computationalism, is, in reality, false? Norman Samish
