Mechanical Turing Machine in Wood (2015) | Hacker News Reader

Mechanical Turing Machine in Wood (2015)

onedrive.live.com

61 pointsbreck20 comments

Accompanying video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vo8izCKHiF0

Wow. That is a beautiful machine!

And I hope I'm not going too far off the rails here (its where viewing this video lead my mind), but this makes me wonder further about what kind of technology we aren't aware of that was used by more ancient cultures. I mean, the Antikythera mechanism kind of blew the doors open for me when I learned it calculated the progression of celestial objects and other astronomical events.

It's possible, no? Probably not with a base of 2, but maybe with some other base or hybrid? We continually discover and get surprised by the skill of some ancient engineering (and the stunning core practicality of it at times).

I agree. Would not be surprised if we unearth more ancient machines like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antikythera_mechanism. I'd bet money Egyptian engineers first developed sophisticated tools (since lost) before building the Pyramids, for example. I'd also bet money there existed thinkers thousands of years ago who invented superior maths to our current maths, and made tools using those maths, but their work wasn't distributed enough and was lost. The brains of top thinkers back then were just as capable as the top brains we have today, afaict.

About the brain, you're correct AFAIK. Any expert on the subject that I've read has said (with explanation that I don't have) that we are working with "outdated hardware" in a way.

The neocortex is a relatively recent evolutionary advantage, but as long as humans have been humans (in the latest evolutionary stage), we've had the same stock parts.

Wow that is one beautiful machine, and the documentation is beautiful too. Imagine if software could be this clearly illustrated, where one glance immediately gives full understanding of the interaction of a dozen parts.

Yet understanding the state of the tape and what it represents gets increasingly difficult the more abstract you get. Running a non-trivial programme in a Turing machine is as hard to inspect as disassembling one in a standard computer. The complexity does not lie on the general computing platform, but in the interpretation that we derive from its state - and, as long as the platform is turing complete, by definition, we will end up running inescrutable programs (because we can!).

Ah, so you've encountered jQuery.

While probably possible, writing a Turing machine in code/software [incl. unit tests] is a trivial Saturday afternoon task. The amount of effort/cost is just orders of magnitude different.

File will no longer download. Please do not use Microsoft Live for this stuff. Can someone re-host it at a less obnoxious site?

Same here. When I load the page it shows the PDF preview then immediately replaces it with a view that says "This file doesn't have a preview." Garbage software.

I can't reproduce it in wood but I'd love to be able to 3D print a copy. Very nice!

I like to use examples like this to illustrate why classical computers will never become conscious despite the hype.

Maybe you can then use slow-motion videos of neurons firing to also illustrate why humans aren't really conscious despite other claims.

This. It seems like the commenter who posted this point lacks some fundamental knowledge of how the brain operates.

For all he knows, it is conscious. But the time scale and size limit it's faculties to a degree [to put it mildly] far too removed from the ability of our senses to perceive.

If anyone is convinced of that solely by a video of a wooden computer, perhaps you've found a person who never became conscious in the first place.

Why "classical" computers? Is there some other kind of computer that isn't emulatable in wood that could become conscious? Hard to know exactly what you mean here.

They're referring to quantum computers, because for some reason a lot of people seem to be convinced that 1) consciousness is made out of magic and 2) quantum physics is magic so therefore 3) "consciousness" requires "quantum"

I don't know what could become conscious; but it seems pretty obvious to me some sticks banging together cannot be.

https://xkcd.com/505/

I will get

Reply on news.ycombinator.com