On 07 Dec 2009, at 14:25, Bruno Marchal wrote (to John Mikes) >> >> Universal machine - BTW: machine, or God, as in (our) theology > > A number or machine which through encoding can emulated all possible > computable relation between numbers. Examples are given by brain, > the DNA genome, physical universe, programming language interpreter, > general purpose computer, etc. > If we accept Church thesis, then the (mathematically existing) > Turing universal machine, *is* a universal machine.
Just to be clear. The universal machine is definitely not a GOD. Usually by God, I mean any entity capable of producing sentences in some non mechanically reducible way. Arithmetical truth, or the set of the descriptions of true arithmetical sentences is known to be a god in that sense, since Gödel proved his incompleteness theorem. Universal machine are finite entities. Yes, it is true that they are always dissatisfied, and always look for more memory-time and memory- space, they can use walls and paper to extend their memory, or anything available relatively to their most probable history/ computation/environment. I call them sometimes "baby gods", but this is just a mark of affection. They are terrible children, and they are know to make life always more complex and difficult. I guess it is the goal! A computer is just a tool for solving the problems raised by another computer. This provides jobs. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
