Turing Complete

[Phoenix Ignition]

Saw this on reddit, but if you haven't it's really awesome. http://www.toothycat.net/~hologram/Turing/

Using only the mechanics of magic cards themselves, some people made a Turing Machine (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_machine). Basically, it's a device that conducts an action based on what it "reads", much like basic computers do.

They use a very complicated series of rules to set it up, but once the game state reaches the desired point, it could then be used to simulate computer algorithms and do things real computers can do. Check it out! I'm sure it took them a long time coming up with it.

[Koby]

That person needs a job. They clearly have too much time on their hands.

[Phoenix Ignition]

That person needs a job. They clearly have too much time on their hands.


I'm Alex Churchill. I'm a Christian computer programmer from Cambridge, England.
Seems like he does.

[Koby]

Well then. Carry on. lol

Never really understood the fascination with CompSci's and Turing Machines. But hey, I'm a stupid engineer. What do I know?

[Phoenix Ignition]

I'm not a Comp sci or in really anything dealing with the nuts and bolts of computers, but I find the concept fascinating anyway.

There's something in math called Gödel Numbering which Kurt Gödel showed relates to basically everything. It's a theory that assigns a natural number to every part of whatever you are talking about, a good example is a formal language. You basically encode everything about a system with a specific number, and then define a set a rules that corresponds to that language.

An example, from wikipedia:

The word HELLO is represented by 72-69-76-76-79 using decimal ASCII, ie the number 7269767679.

The logical statement x=y => y=x is represented by 120-061-121-032-061-062-032-121-061-120 using octal ASCII, ie the number 120061121032061062032121061120.

It basically replaces the need for symbols, such as "=" and gives you a way to describe everything with numbers. These set of rules can be carried on to everything, language, complex systems, anything you want, just replace certain characters with numbers. After you do this, you basically just have to make a consistent set of rules about how you can interact with any object, using simple algebra. This is how deep down computers do any processing at all.

Now with this new Gödel Numbering system you have strings of numbers. You can then, through a few different processes, have a system which reads through strings of numbers, and if it comes to a certain one that is specifically designed to recognize, it will carry out an action. This is more complex than I think I completely understand, but for an example, let's say we code "+", the plus sign, as "202". This really means "take the number in front of it, and carry out the "+" operation with the number behind it." So if we have a string that says "1020210" (assuming we have "10" actually being the number 10) the processor would return "20".

Cool, we have a computer that reads in a string of stuff, and conducts an operation that we told it to. There are a few operations we could have it do, but this is the basics of computers in general. They read strings, carry out operations when they read in a set of numbers that they are programmed to, and keep doing what they're doing.

So, we have basic computers. Why is this cool? Well, there are a lot of interesting implications about Gödel Numbering, such as self-reference (when a string of numbers actually refers to itself, like if you transformed the English language's "This sentence is not a sentence." into Gödel Numbering) but that's just a side note. The two cool parts for me is this is how DNA replication works, almost exactly, and also you can describe almost any system with Gödel Numbering itself.

In your cells there are mini-Turing machines that read the DNA strings and depending on what they find, either replicate similar strings, cut those strings, keep moving along the string, etc. It's how life works, how computers work and basically this guy copied the entire mechanism into a gamestate of a complicated game of magic cards!

[aahz]

Nice find! Quite an interesting intellectual exercise.

If you're interested in this sort of stuff, check out the book Goedel, Escher, Bach by Douglas Hofstadter (if you haven't already).

[Phoenix Ignition]

Nice find! Quite an interesting intellectual exercise.

If you're interested in this sort of stuff, check out the book Goedel, Escher, Bach by Douglas Hofstadter (if you haven't already).

Already have, but can't miss the opportunity to plug it again!

Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid (http://www.amazon.com/G%C3%B6del-Escher-Bach-Eternal-Golden/dp/0465026567) won the Pulitzer Prize for general non-fiction and the National Book Award for Science.

[aahz]

There's even a version where he takes it down a notch (for those scared of the math in GEB): I am a Strange Loop (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Am_a_Strange_Loop)

[Julian23]

six copies of teysa, orzhov scion*, all controlled by alex, all granted phasing with teferi's curse or cloak of invisibility, all triple-hacked, and three of them phased out by reality ripple

Sounds like your typical Monday evening EDH game. L O L

[Nihil Credo]

This is bloody fucking amazing.