Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your P is objecting to ' other conspiracy theories' (thus implying the forementioned is one).
It is one. It is a theory of a conspiracy.
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A book from Alan Turing and a mysterious piece of paper
91–95 of 95 posts
Re: A book from Alan Turing and a mysterious piece of paper
#92"My own guess is that it was not suicide, but that’s a different story." What was this about, I wonder?
There's some doubt. He did electroplating as a hobby for which he used potassium cyanide. He could have inhaled hydrogen cyanide fumes, or not washed his hands well enough before eating the apple. So it might have been accidental death.
Having worked with similar chemicals, you tend not to get careless. I would wager a majority of cyanide injestions are not accidental. I think murder or suicide is much more likely, particularlly given the context.
Re: A book from Alan Turing and a mysterious piece of paper
#93Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Bullying by the state" is not a conspiracy theory. He was actually, objectively punished by the state in a manner that is considered cruel and inhumane by modern standards.
I agree in principle with your objection, but I'm having trouble re-formulating the sentence in a way which is accurate but still sounds natural: > it's an openly debated topic, ranging from a simple accident to bullying by the state and conspiracy theories. > it's an openly debated topic, ranging from a simple accident to bullying by the state or other kinds of conspiracy theories. How would you say it?
The sentence is a train wreck to begin with. "Conspiracy theory" isn't a potential cause of death, and these things do not really form a coherent range. Presumably the conspiracy theories allege murder? In that case, I might write something like: "Turing's death is still an openly debated topic, with purported causes of death including simple accident, suicide resulting from bullying by the state, and even murder at the hands of a conspiracy."
Re: A book from Alan Turing and a mysterious piece of paper
#94Earlier quoted context omitted.
You shouldn't judge the value of conjectures until you know whether they're true or not. Right now, we have no computable model for physics. NKS conjectures that some particular types of CA could compute our universe. If this turns out to be true, it'll be huge.
I dunno, I think it's pretty easy to judge the value of not easily testable wacky conjectures. I don't think much of Penrose's idea that brains are quantum gravitic computers either, and that is vastly more close to being testable, and Penrose's achievements and track record in actual science are also vastly more impressive. Putting that aside; computer guys seem to think "computability" is important in physics. I do…
> I dunno, I think it's pretty easy to judge the value of not easily testable wacky conjectures.
Can you describe the process you use to easily judge the value of such conjectures? I'm at a loss of how that would be done since, even though a conjecture might not be testable easily, it might still end up being true.
Even if not completely true, it might in some sense be close enough to inspire new ways of thinking that ultimately lead to the correct solution. For this reason, I'm wary of premature dismissal of "wacky" ideas.
> Putting that aside; computer guys seem to think "computability" is important in physics. I don't.
Taking a step back, the very ability to realize computational systems in physical systems seems very peculiar and interesting in itself, in the same way that noticing how peculiar it is that mathematics is able to describe such a large portion (all?) of physics. It then seems natural to ask oneself whether any physical system could then be considered to model some computation, which would make the connection bidirectional. I do not consider this observation to be that ludicrous nor exclusive to the computer guys.
Re: A book from Alan Turing and a mysterious piece of paper
#95Earlier quoted context omitted.
> If we find a completely different way of computing it that doesn't map to a CA, we'll know it's false. This is wrong. You would have to additionally prove that the other thing is the only alternative. Also, CA is not testable in the sense that the theory of relativity is testable. The latter makes measurable predictions that can be satisfied, the former does not. I can imagine any model - unicorns and fairies inclu…
A CA model of physics would certainly make measurable predictions, probably including some surprising ones that would suggest experiments to confirm them.
Where do you take your certainess from? If even Stephen Wolfram could not produce such predictions, then I doubt anyone else could. In all likelyhood, it is just not a good physical model.