Talk:Theory of computation

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[edit] Computation as a explanation of the mind

This is a discussion that is becoming increasingly popular: Can computation as it is defined act as an adequate model of the way an organic neurological system behaves? In other words does the theory of computation give us any further understanding of the mind? This is a topic of both philosophy and computer science/AI. My feelings on this matter are that our understanding of the function of machines is misleading, often the way it is perceived that a computer works is actually far from the reality of what the machine is doing. This is similar to the problems of introspective thinking that led to ideas like Cartesian Dualism. So, can we (as intelligent animals) be described in terms of symbol manipulation and finite state machines? I’m not so convinced, but at the same time I don’t completely reject the notion. Katateochi 09:10, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

This is a discussion of related computation vs conscience in the talk pages of Computer science. It is a very hard debate. Some of taken the debate very personal because it does examine oneself to a point. The Turing machine does not handle conscience or other functions, as it is stated in the Turing-Church thesis (and more in follow-ups). Some think computation goes beyond that while others do not. There is no proof. — Dzonatas 14:20, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Use of the term Regular Expression

The use of the term regular expression in this article is misleading, as regular expressions in Unix tools and Perl recognize non-regular languages, through the backreference operators (\1 \2 ...). So mentioning regular expressions in a sentence with Unix tools and Perl, then saying that FSA are mathematically equivalent to regular expressions makes use of both senses of the term. --jonsafari 23:45, 19 May 2006 (UTC)