From: Stuart Armstrong (dragondreaming@googlemail.com)
Date: Wed Oct 14 2009 - 03:37:07 MDT
> The *turing machine* doesn't return to the same state, but the
> *algorithm* only has (I think) 3 states, so the algorithm returns to
> the same state routinely. Same with the Pi example. Program !=
> Data.
Agreed. But since we got talking about infinite loops, I interpreted
"the same state" as meaning part of a cyclic repetition, in which case
the data is relevant.
>
> The only way you can get a machine running deterministicaly that
> never returns to exactly the same state and never halts is if the
> program is infinite, or the data is infinite; the latter is the case
> of your Turing machine. On real computers, this isn't possible. So
> in fact what the person Stuart was replying to is correct, if you
> require both the FSM and the data to be finite.
Agreed.
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