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Article 4545 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: zeleny@zariski.harvard.edu (Mikhail Zeleny)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy,sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Re: A rock implements every FSA
Message-ID: <1992Mar18.014416.9980@husc3.harvard.edu>
Date: 18 Mar 92 06:44:14 GMT
References: <44993@dime.cs.umass.edu> <1992Mar17.224156.9177@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu> <45005@dime.cs.umass.edu>
Organization: Dept. of Math, Harvard Univ.
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Nntp-Posting-Host: zariski.harvard.edu

In article <45005@dime.cs.umass.edu> 
orourke@sophia.smith.edu (Joseph O'Rourke) writes:

>In article <1992Mar17.224156.9177@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu>
>chalmers@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu (David Chalmers) writes: 

>>In article <44993@dime.cs.umass.edu> 
>>orourke@sophia.smith.edu (Joseph O'Rourke) writes:

JO'R:
>>>Putnam is well aware of the counterfactuals objection, and devotes pages
>>>96-105 of his book to refuting it. [...] 

DC:
>>All this is irrelevant to my point.  On those pages, Putnam is concerned
>>with the question of the satisfaction of counterfactuals like "if
>>A had not happened, B would not have happened", and points out
>>that the truth-conditions for statements like these are problematic.
>>I'm concerned with the much more straightforward matter of making
>>sure that the implementation actually satisfies all the transition
>>relations in the state-table; e.g. such that if it is in state C,
>>it will transit to state D, and so on. [...]

JO'R:
>	Ah, I see!  That is an excellent point!  He does seem to
>show only that a particular *trace* of the running of an FSA can
>be 'implemented' by a rock, not that the FSA itself, with all its
>inherent possibilities, can be implemented.  Your point seems to 
>me to be devastating.

Nonsense.  As I've demonstrated in the previous posting, Putnam considers
every possible state of the automaton, not just a particular trace thereof.

On a related note, the Principle of Charity requires assuming that your
opponent is not a blithering idiot, insofar as this assumption is
consistent with his utterances.  As witnessed by his work in recursion
theory (recall Hilbert's Tenth Problem and the origin of higher degree
theory), it is very likely that Putnam knows more about automata than
anyone else in this particular forum.  I would recommend his opponents 
to use a tad more care in dismissing his arguments.


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: Mikhail Zeleny                                                     :
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