Re: Turing machines and tape length

[Howard Pattee <***>]

At 08:34 AM 12/28/04 -0500, Tim asks:
> Howard,
>  Can you provide an example or
> two of what you mean by
> "encoded empirical
> models of Nature"? I read
> this and your reply to Judith's 'Formality' post and I still don't
> understand what this phrase refers to. In my view, an 'encoded empirical
> model of Nature' would be some formal model, and 'empirical' indicates
> that this formal model is in a commuting modelling relation with some
> natural system. 

HP: I think we agree on this. To try to be clearer, I would emphasize
that no formalism is a model until it is interpreted, which requires the
encoding/decoding process. All the computation or rewriting of words in
the formalism is done by meaningless "mechanism." That is just
what formal means. The interpretation or "coding" is what gives
meaning and hence testability to the formalism and thereby transforms it
into an empirical model. 

The important point is that coding and interpretation is unentailed by
both Nature and the formalism. Therefore how we interpret our formalism
and choose our observables is not limited by Nature or the formalism
except finally by the required conformity or "commutation"
relation. 

Hertz: "For our purpose [scientific models] it is not necessary that
they [the formalisms] should be in conformity with the things in any
other respect whatever. As a matter of fact, we do not know, nor have we
any means of knowing, whether our conception of things are in conformity
with them in any other than this one fundamental respect [their
'commutation']."

Howard