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From: peter@graffiti.UUCP (Peter da Silva)
Newsgroups: net.philosophy,net.math,net.physics
Subject: Re: Mind as Turing Machine: a proof *and* a disproof!
Message-ID: <394@graffiti.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 3-Nov-85 04:27:48 EST
Article-I.D.: graffiti.394
Posted: Sun Nov  3 04:27:48 1985
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> []
> 	The problem in the discussion in that nobody has stated clearly
> 	which equivalence relation he is using. Psycholinguistics has
> 	found that humans can search their memory in < log n time, n

How could they do this? Do you store n items in an otherwise virgin mind
and do the search? I can't see how you could possibly prove this, but in
any case:

> 	being the number of items. Turing machines clearly can not do
> 	better than order n time. Proof that humans are not Turing machines.
> 	(Note I took an equivalence relation which did look at time.)

This does not preclude the possibility that humans are  turing machines
executing in parallel. If each item has such a machine attached (not
unreasonable) then the search can complete in unit time: all that you need
is to broadcast the description to all the machines (hey, who has X?).
-- 
Name: Peter da Silva
Graphic: `-_-'
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