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From: smryan@garth.UUCP (Steven Ryan)
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc,comp.ai
Subject: Re: The Ignorant assumption
Summary: I'm guilty.
Message-ID: <1500@garth.UUCP>
Date: 30 Sep 88 20:34:32 GMT
References: <1369@garth.UUCP> <2346@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu> <1383@garth.UUCP> <372@quintus.UUCP> <1390@garth.UUCP> <388@quintus.UUCP> <7059@aw.sei.cmu.edu> <1929@aplcomm.jhuapl.edu> <7202@aw.sei.cmu.edu> <492@quintus.UUCP>
Reply-To: smryan@garth.UUCP (Steven Ryan)
Organization: INTERGRAPH (APD) -- Palo Alto, CA
Lines: 13

>random number generation!) *might* be fooling us.  You can only appeal to
>phsyical random number generators to disprove the Church-Turing hypothesis
>if you assume that the quantum-mechanical laws a really true, which is to
>say if you already assume that the universe is not running on a Turing machine.
>I believe it, but a circular "proof" like that is no proof!

Well, just to keep things straight, I'm the one who mentionned TM and CT. I
used them as a conditionals, `If the universe was a TM, then such and such
would follow.' It wasn't intended to assert, prove, or disprove CT, but just
engage in withywanderring philosophical speculation.

To me, the Ignorant Assumption is not any particular theory or religion, but
the meta-assumption that assumptions are unnecessary.