> On 19 Apr 2019, at 09:16, 'Cosmin Visan' via Everything List > <[email protected]> wrote: > > It's still not clear to me what your concept of "machine" is. Is it just an > abstract theory or is it some actually existing entity ?
It is a machine in the sense of computer science. It is purely immaterial, and can be represented by numbers, or by combinators, of by set of quadruples (Turing). My favorite definition of machine is true the combinator,. I could use to define a machine in this (recursive) way: K is a machine S is a machine If x and y are machines, then (x y) is a machine. So example of machine are K, S (K K) , (S, K), … ((K K) K), (K (K K)), … We abbreviate ((K K) K) by KKK, and (K (K K)) by K(KK). We suppress The functioning of the machine is given by the two reduction rule: Kxy -> x Sxyz -> xz(yz) This can be shown Turing universal, so any other digital machine, and digital machine execution can be emulated faithfully by such machine. See the (recent) combinator threads for more on this. A simple example of a computation is SKSK -> KK(SK) -> K. > If it is actually existing, If you agree that x + 2 = 5 admits a solution, then it exist in that sense. All other sense of existence are derived for the existence in that sense. There are many. > is it made out of atoms ? Because if it is made out of atoms, where does its > free will come from ? It is of course not made of physical atoms, but you can call “S” and “K” combinatoric atoms. No problem fro free-will for the universal combinator, which of course exists, (as the combinator machinery is Turing universal), and universal machine (immaterial or material computer) have free-will. > In the case of humans free will comes from the fact that we are not made out > of atoms, but we are consciousnesses, "atoms" being just ideas in us. OK. But the derivation must explain why atoms have electrons, why orbitals, etc. But yes, the physical atoms are eventually reduce to dream made by us, (us = the combinator, not the humans which are very particular case of machine/number/combinators!). You might bought some good introductory book on computer science. The original papers are the best, I think, so Martin Davis book at Dover are well suited to begin with. He use the Turing formalism, where a machine is defined by a set of quadruples like q_7 S_9 S_54 q_6, which means if I am in. State 7, in front of the symbol S_9, I overwrite the symbol S_54 and go to the state q_6. There are also instruction to move left or right on some locally finite, but extendendable register/tape. If we assume the Church-Turing thesis, any similar formalism will work. Bruno > > On Thursday, 18 April 2019 17:04:15 UTC+3, Bruno Marchal wrote: > > They have as much free will as human (direct consequence of the Mechanist > assumption). > > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Everything List" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected] > <mailto:[email protected]>. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected] > <mailto:[email protected]>. > Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/everything-list > <https://groups.google.com/group/everything-list>. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout > <https://groups.google.com/d/optout>. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
