Re: high-school presentation, suggestions?

In article <Q9P3eLBZy7cnWdcu5@bongo-ra.co>,
Spiros Bousbouras  <spibou@gmail.com> wrote:

On 24 Mar 2024 01:49:31 -0000
kludge@panix.com (Scott Dorsey) wrote:

Stefan Ram <ram@zedat.fu-berlin.de> wrote:

kludge@panix.com (Scott Dorsey) wrote or quoted:

I explained to the CIO of a large government agency that a particular
system wasn't a computer at all because it wasn't a finite automaton,

>
You don't say what the context of the discussion was but I assume that some
practical issue was concerned. I can't think of a practical situation where
the most useful reply is around the lines of whether the system involved is a
computer or a finite automaton.

In this case it was about whether quantum computers had to run the mandatory
IT department monitoring software.  I maintained that since quantum computers
like analogue computers aren't really "computers" and can't run software as
we think of it, that this would be impossible.

Our computer security people wanted us to put encryption software on E-6B
slide rules because they were on the inventory as "portable computers."

>
Is this the same thing as the CIO discussion you mention above or something
else ? Anyway , if someone wanted to install any kind of software on slide
rules and they didn't know that "portable computers" in this context refers
to slide rules , I would point out to them that it does. If they did know that
slide rules were involved and they seriously wanted to install software on
them , I would be at a loss for words.

We had to destroy the E-6Bs because the rules say that computers have to
have whole-disk encryption and the E-6B could not support whole-disk
encryption.

We also had to get rid of a bunch of computers that did not have disks
and could not boot off disk, because such machines could not support
whole-disk encryption.

Because it is important to follow the rules.  The security people did not
care about whether the system was secure or not because it was not their
job to do so.  It was their job to enforce the rules.

I don't know who "everyone" is. I don't think that most people or even most
IT professionals bother to think of a general definition for "computer".
Ultimately the question is philosophical. Is the human mind a computer ? Is
the whole universe a computer ? I only think of "finite automaton" or "Turing
machine" in connection with mathematical theorems. For practical computing
purposes I don't think they are useful terms.

What is a computer and what is not a computer?  A rock is not a computer,
a lawnmower is not a computer.  If you ask kids, they all know what is a
computer and what is not a computer but they cannot define it and they do
not know why a computer is a computer.  Sometimes they get confused on what
appear to be edge cases like cellphones.

Is the human mind a computer?  That question then devolves down to "can the
human mind be emulated as a finite automaton?" because it is provable that
the human mind can emulate a finite automaton (in at least the case of
at least half the students I ask to trace through some code).  The answer
to this question is worth a Nobel prize at least, and possibly a Turing
award as well.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."