Thanks, David; thanks, everybody.
I smell a tautology, here.
An accept state is a state that is acceptable.
NIck
Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology
Clark University
<http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/>
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
From: Friam [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Prof David West
Sent: Saturday, July 02, 2016 12:51 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Understanding you-folks
An accept state is merely a final or end state. A Turing machine is a
generalization (has greater capabilities) than a standard state machine. A
state machine has states and transitions from one state to another, with the
"accept state" as the end of the chain.
name derives from "acceptable" / "accepting"
Petzold's book, The Annotated Turing, does a better (more accessible to lay
audiences) job of explaining Turing's 36 page paper than Bernard's.
davew
On Sat, Jul 2, 2016, at 09:30 AM, Nick Thompson wrote:
Dear Friammers,
When I came to Santa Fe a decade ago, a recently retired psychology professor
and writer, it was with a great interest in complexity and a faith that, with
enough patience, and diligence I could come to understand what you were all
about. This has proved much more difficult than I had imagined. So it was,
with renewed optimism, that I picked up Chris Bernard’s TURING’S VISION: THE
BIRTH OF COMPUTER SCIENCE. It looked like the kind of book that I ought to be
able to understand. (Note the use of modal language.) But, as so often happens
with such deceptively simple, books-for-the-ordinary-citizen-like-me, its first
few pages contained a few assumptions that seemed so bone-headedly
counter-intuitive that everything I read thereafter was poisoned. So, I have
four questions:
1. Has anybody read this book?
2. Do you understand it?
3. WTF is an Accept State?
4. And why is it called an “Accept State?”
Hope the members of the Friam Mother Church are having good summer. You should
know that you have had more rain in Santa Fe than we have had here in
Massachusetts since I got back. My neighbors have started tearing up their
lawns and laying down pebbles.
Take care,
Nick
Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology
Clark University
<http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/>
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
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