Xref: utzoo comp.ai:2289 talk.religion.misc:7777 Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!uwvax!oddjob!mimsy!aplcen!aplcomm!stdc.jhuapl.edu!jwm From: jwm@stdc.jhuapl.edu (Jim Meritt) Newsgroups: comp.ai,talk.religion.misc Subject: Re: The Ignorant assumption Message-ID: <1929@aplcomm.jhuapl.edu> Date: 22 Sep 88 12:58:57 GMT References: <1369@garth.UUCP> <2346@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu> <1383@garth.UUCP> <372@quintus.UUCP> <1390@garth.UUCP> <388@quintus.UUCP> <7059@aw.sei.cmu.edu> Sender: news@aplcomm.jhuapl.edu Reply-To: jwm@aplvax.UUCP (Jim Meritt) Followup-To: talk.religion.misc Organization: JHU-Applied Physics Laboratory Lines: 22 In article <7059@aw.sei.cmu.edu> firth@bd.sei.cmu.edu (Robert Firth) writes: }In article <388@quintus.UUCP> ok@quintus.UUCP (Richard A. O'Keefe) writes: } }>But is there any reason to suppose that the universe _is_ a Turing machine? } }None whatever. The conjecture is almost instantly disprovable: no Turing }machine can output a true random number, but a physical system can. Since }a function is surely "computable" if a physical system can be constructed }that computes it, the existence of true random-number generators directly }disproves the Church-Turing conjecture. Love it! If the universe is random, you can have uncaused events. If the universe is not random, it is (a type of) Church-Turing machine... Disclaimer: Individuals have opinions, organizations have policy. Therefore, these opinions are mine and not any organizations! Q.E.D. jwm@aplvax.jhuapl.edu 128.244.65.5 (James W. Meritt)