On Tue, Aug 27, 2019 at 12:48 PM Jason Resch <[email protected]> wrote:
*> But he wasn't smart enough to immediately reject the notion of > computation without physical execution on a computer.* > Probably because Marvin Minsky didn't think he was talking to somebody like Bruno or you and some things in a conversation don't need to be spelled out because they are a given. I've heard him say a simulated world running on a computer (made of matter that obeys the laws of physics) must exist if the word "exist" is to have any meaning, and I've heard him say (5 min 50 sec in) that even if the electronic computer is turned off if a human looks at the computer's program his physical brain (that is made of matter and obeys the laws of physics) can work out what will happen next. But if you're talking about a program that is not running on a computer and nobody has even thought of it (6 min 25 sec in) he said "that's where I think we have to stop" because if you don't then the word "existence" makes no sense and everything is trivial. And If you equate "possible" with "real" then the word becomes "obsolete and unnecessary". So if you want to make sense you've got to talk about what's happening in this universe. He said (9 min 30 sec in ) you can write a small computer program that can write every possible computer program (obviously including programs that say 2+2=5), it's true at that point he didn't specifically say that small program would have to be running of a computer or be read by a person to actually *do* that, or *do* anything at all, but I think that's clearly implied. I've certainly never heard him say you can make a computation without a physical computer or a physical person somewhere along the line. John K Clark -- 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 view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/CAJPayv1SvO7_fYa6TwXZrJOuF60i807yfuQZNjywZfoEK-AK%3DA%40mail.gmail.com.
