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A comment on When does a physical system compute?. Parent comment

Re:When does a physical system compute? by wyager on Sunday May 04, 2014 @04:13PM (#7695603)
Right, but how do you define the halting state for a physical system? A stable state? No free energy left? Is it arbitrary?
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Re:When does a physical system compute? by im3w1l on Sunday May 04, 2014 @04:32PM (#7695675)
It is up to the person claiming that the system can be interpreted as a Turing machine.

"If we view these parts of the beach as the tape, and all crabs being in a state described by these rules as corresponds to halting, then this crab population can be seen as a Turing machine!"

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Re:When does a physical system compute? by dvanduzer on Sunday May 04, 2014 @07:23PM (#7696241)
This question has been explored thoroughly by the engineers at http://www.multivax.com
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Re:When does a physical system compute? by nmac on Sunday May 04, 2014 @04:21PM (#7695641)
Be careful with definitions (sets of necessary and sufficient conditions) to any concept... counterexamples lie around the corner.
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