> Turing machines are not handed down to us by God; there is no reason to be... | Hacker News

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a3_nm on July 15, 2011 | parent | context | favorite | on: The Singularity is Far: A Neuroscientist's View

> Turing machines are not handed down to us by God; there is no reason to believe they are some kind of Ultimate Representation of Everything.

The claim that they are is called the Church-Turing thesis, and there are pretty strong arguments, though of course you can never be sure.

nazgulnarsil on July 16, 2011 [–]

it isn't just that you can never be sure. you can also never be sure it is false. for anything you find that is potentially uncomputable you never know if you simply haven't figured out how to compute it yet.

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