Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84 (Fortune 01.1b1); site graffiti.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!seismo!ut-sally!ut-ngp!shell!graffiti!peter 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 Date-Received: Tue, 5-Nov-85 07:56:00 EST References: <1996@umcp-cs.UUCP> <667@hwcs.UUCP> <2031@umcp-cs.UUCP> <509@klipper.UUCP> Organization: The Power Elite, Houston, TX Lines: 22 Xref: linus net.philosophy:2745 net.math:2109 net.physics:3234 > [] > 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 areturing 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: `-_-' UUCP: ...!shell!{graffiti,baylor}!peter IAEF: ...!kitty!baylor!peter