[Reader-list] Alternative software???

[Are Flagan]

On 11/29/02 18:53, "Pankaj Kaushal" <pankaj at sarai.net> wrote:

> ***Sorry fellow earthlings I give in to the troll***
> 
> Dear Are,
> Sorry for the interruption but as a student of Theory of
> computation, I am sorry to say neither I or Turing will
> agree to the first paragraph of your mail
>

Of course he would not agree. See the notes again, especially his sixth
objection on Lovelace. Then again, I do not agree with Turing (nor do I
think he agreed with his earlier self in the end).
 
> 
> First of all the question is not about either hardware or software
> or that software is dependent on hardware. the later is just an
> assumption people make or are taught by other people who dont understand
> computing very well. The mail motive is to solve a problem and
> if a turing machine can solve that problem then it is logicaly solvable
> and then the implementation of it can be in hardware or hardware dependent
> software or hardware independent but software dependent software.
>

What you are missing is the Turing breakthrough in modern computing -- the
interplay between the problem, the algorithm, the Turing machine,
software/hardware and the Universal. This can of course be configured in any
of the ways you mention, but this discussion, along with the essay, was
aimed at an elucidation of software, that is to say primarily one
configuration of the set up. Turing never really made a distinction between
hardware and software, except by adding the prefix Universal -- Turing
Machines within a Universal Turing Machine -- suggesting that they are of a
similar order, but stacked like Russian dolls. This point is reiterated in
the essay by making some reference to the hazy distinction between software
and hardware, while focusing on their limits and the operative desires and
effects, so to speak, of software. Or, if you like, the function of your
tautology -- "if a Turing Machine can solve a problem then it is logically
solvable." To which my essay incredulously attempts to ask: because the
Turing Machine (software/hardware) told you so?
 
> There are certain problems which considered undecidable thus, unsolvable by
> computers for example the problem that the set of all functions f:N->N is
> unsolvable by turing machine.
>  
> Again it is foolish to assume that software is dependent on hardware or that
> the universal principles of computation are laid down by hardware, hardware
> design or limitaitons of hardware components.
>   
> There is a concept called nondeterministic turing machine just as
> finite automata is allowed to act nondeterministcally. a nondeterministic
> turing machin can produce two different outputs to the same input.
>  
> do you have any clue to what you are writing interpreting
> imssinterprating.
>

No clue (so let's ignore that angle). There are many more problems
unsolvable by a computer, such as chewing gum and walking at the same time
(but it is nicely simulated in multitasking). The prospects of understanding
computing (or software or hardware) cannot belong to math and logic alone,
unless these are also recast within their own social and cultural and
philosophical histories. If computing is only understood as a successful
program -- invoked here in the widest sense but with reference to its
application -- that relies upon certain solutions (arrived at through math
and logic), understanding then resides solely with the machine that _runs_
them, brings them to life. Post Heisenberg, the Russian attempts at building
trinary computers, and the speedy benchmarks of photons rather than
electrons, one could indeed say that it is foolish to suggest that there is
any consistency or limitations to hardware or software, or any set
dependency to their relations. However, anyone who has ever pointed at a
stack to set either a true or false value/voltage would acknowledge that
there is a dependency, and I have yet to run an algorithm that does not
resolve its truth table, speaking here of limitations (my computer has
crashed on occasion, though). What I vehemently seek to contest is the
built-in arrogance that seeks refuge in the operations of the machine, in
its concepts and functions, to render any other interpretations than those
proffered by its devoted students foolish and clueless.

-af