Turings Universal Digital Computer

Video of a talk originally given at the Turing Centenary meeting in Canterbury England.

[ripsirwin]

Fascinating talk as always, comrade professor!

[alanabdollahzadeh]

If you enjoy this video, I'd recommend reading Computation and Its Limits.

[LibertarianLeninistRants]

May I ask why you have linked the YouTube channel of Sabine Hossenfelder on your YouTube channel?
Do you know her?

[ericgenaroflores]

There was once a small boy in a village who was sent regularly by his parents to fetch bread. He used always to have ten kreuzer, and bring back in exchange six rolls. If you bought one such roll it cost two kreuzer, but he always brought back six rolls for his ten kreuzer. The boy was not particularly good at arithmetic and never troubled himself as to how it worked out that he always took with him ten kreuzer, that a roll cost two and yet he brought home six rolls in return for his ten. One day a boy was brought into the family from another part and he became for our small boy a kind of foster-brother. They were of about the same age, but the foster-brother was a good arithmetician. And he saw how his companion went to the baker's, taking with him ten kreuzer, and he knew that a roll cost two. So he said to him, “You must bring home five rolls.” He was a very good arithmetician and his reasoning was perfectly accurate. One roll costs two kreuzer (so he reasoned), he takes with him ten, he will obviously bring home five rolls. But behold, he brought back six. Then said our good arithmetician: “But that is quite wrong! One roll costs two kreuzer, and you took ten, and two into ten goes five times; you can't possibly bring back six rolls. You must have made a mistake or else you have pinched one ...” But now, lo and behold, on the next day, too, the boy brought home six rolls. It was, you see, a custom in those parts that when you bought five you received an extra one in addition, so that in fact when you paid for five rolls you received six. It was a custom that was very agreeable for anyone who needed five rolls for his household.
The good arithmetician had reasoned, quite correctly, there was no fault in his thinking; but this correct thinking did not accord with reality. We are obliged to admit the correct thinking did not arrive at the reality, for reality does not order itself in accordance with correct thinking. You may see very clearly in this case how with the most conscientious, the most clever logical thinking that can possibly be spun out, you may arrive at a correct conclusion and yet, measured by reality your conclusion may be utterly and completely false. That can always happen. Consequently a proof that is acquired purely through thought can never be a criterion for reality — never.
One can also go very far wrong in the linking up of cause and effect when, for example, one applies it in respect of the external world. Let me give you an instance. Let us suppose a man is walking along the bank of a stream. He comes to a certain place, and you observe from a distance that at this point he falls over the edge into the water. You hurry up to him, meaning to save him; but he is drawn up out of the water quite dead. Now you see before you the corpse. You can quite well maintain, let us say, that the man has been drowned. You can go to work with your proof in a very able way. Perhaps at the place where he fell into the water there was a stone. Very well then, he stumbled over the stone and fell in and was drowned. The sequence of the thought is quite correct. When a man goes to the bank of a river, stumbles over a stone that is lying there, falls into the water and is pulled out dead — he must have been drowned. It cannot be otherwise. Now precisely in this instance it is not necessarily so. When you stop allowing yourself to be ruled by this particular connection of cause and effect, you may be able to discover that this man, in the moment when he fell into the water, was seized with a heart attack, in consequence of which, since he was walking at the edge of the stream, he fell in. He was already dead when he fell in; though everything happened to him just as it would to a man who fell in alive. You see, when someone comes to the conclusion, in this case from the sequence of the external events, that the man in question slipped, fell into the water and was drowned, the conclusion is quite a false one, it does not correspond with reality. For the man fell into the water because he was dead; he was not pulled out dead because he had fallen in. Twisted conclusions like this are to be found at every turn in the scientific literature of our time; only they are not noticed, any more than this instance would have been noticed if one had not taken trouble to investigate the matter. In more delicate and subtle connections of cause and effect such mistakes are continually being made. I only want to indicate in this way that in point of fact our thinking is quite incompetent to form a decision in respect of reality.
But now, if this is really so, if our thinking can be no sure guide for us, how are we ever to save ourselves from sinking into doubt and ignorance? For it is a fact, whoever has had experience in these matters and concerned himself deeply with thinking, knows that one can prove and disprove everything. No philosophy, however penetrating in its thought, can impose upon him any more. He may admire the acumen and penetration of its thought, but he cannot give himself up to the mere reasoning of the intellect, since he knows that one could just as well reason intellectually in the opposite sense. This is true of everything that can be proved, or disproved. In this connection one can often make intensely interesting observations in everyday life. There is a certain fascination, though of course only a theoretical fascination, in making the acquaintance of people who have come to that particular point in soul evolution where they begin to perceive and experience that everything can be proved and everything disproved, but are not yet sufficiently mature to adopt what we may call a spiritual attitude to the world.-Rudolf Steiner

[HxHDRA]

If not everything that is mathematically expressible is actually possible does that imply that the universe is finite?

[nonono]

In this video i learned that prof Cockshott is absolutely terrible at telling jokes.

[Cdssmffan]

In a letter written on his fiftieth birthday to Engels, Marx recalled his mother’s words: "if only Karl made capital instead of just writing about it." Here are some more fun facts about your stinking, senile old leader.

1. Prone to drunkenness and duels as a kid. He was sent to prison for being drunk and fought with fellow students. Clearly he wasn't bullied hard enough as a child. Because of his misbehaviour, the government denied him an academic career and he had to settle for working as a journalist.
2. Literally a man without a country, kicked out and exiled out of every nation-state like a misbehaving kid being kicked out of every school he enrols in. He was run out of Prussia, expelled from France, rejected from Belgium, kicked out of Prussia once again, denied citizenship in Britain, refused re-naturalization in Prussia, rejected from Texas.
3. Marx and his family lived in abject squalor and poverty, being kicked out of his apartment for failing to pay rent, used a fake name for decades to hide from creditors, could not even leave his house because his wife had to pawn his pants to buy food. Frequently recieved free gibs from Engels.
4. Another communist once plotted to kill him for being stuck in an armchair and insufficiently radical. When challenged to a duel by this communist, Marx got scared and ran away. The communist later became a general in the Union Army during the American Civil War.
5. He died broke and just 11 people attended his funeral. He always complained about his life, and his funds and influence was waning upon his death.

Don't forget that he fathered a child with his maid, and guilted Engels into taking the blame. Oh, he also bought guns for a "revolution" that never happened instead of food and medicine for his sick child (who later died). Oh, and he frequently planned his finances around the death (and subsequent inheritance) of his wealthy relatives. Oh, and that he intentionally (apparently) put economic "traps" into Kapital vol 1, that he left for his detractors so that he could "destroy" them in vol 3. Except he died before vol 3 came out. Even if he had written what he planned, his whole foundation was "destroyed" (ironically) by Marginal Utility. He was also very lazy which added to his problems. His views had no bearing on real life but was idealistic and unattainable. The combination of laziness and unattainable actions led to his demise and the birth of the democrat party. It will end just as sadly for the democrats.

I have, on more than several occasions, heard young, broke college students prattle on and on about how they thought Karl Marx was brilliant. Asking those in the conversation, have you ever read Marx? I have more than once been told I was bourgeoisie or listened as parents of some of these "Marxists" were called bourgeoisie. "Bourge" (boozee?) is a derogatory term for anyone who strives for anything better than the bare minimum to get by. Interestingly, fast forward a few years when these same "Marxist" are offered a salaried job, and have a car, house and credit card payment, mention Marx and they shrug it off with the reply, "that was back in college". Marxism is trash because its always been a movement of plebians - people with the morality and intelligence of slaves. These people don't have the potential to create anything better. You can't expect the average humanities major from a state university to be anything but medicore and pathetic.

The guy is absolute scum. The worst kind of human being. The fact that so many look up to him, and yet know very little about him, is literally disgusting (yes, it literally churns my stomach). If you're going to invent a time machine in order to go back in time and kill Hitler, don't. Just go back a little further to the source of collectivist trash.