[logicrook]

My comment's intention was to illustrate that the derided sentence simply intended to say "it's abstract". So now, let's see how "The Turing Machine is really a machine, in every practical sense." is false, starting with the Oxford's dictionary definition of machine:

An apparatus using mechanical power and having several parts, each with a definite function and together performing a particular task.

So a mathematical notion definitely does not satisfy this definition. An abstract machine is definitely different from a machine. The map is not the territory (or was Korzybski wrong all along?).

[dahart]

Clearly you understand! An abstract machine is different from a machine, that nicely summarizes what I said. Good to know we can use the word "machine" for multiple different kinds of machines. Glad to see you agree that a Finite State Machine is a machine of the abstract variety. I'm happy that we've moved past the semantics into the practical realm of allowing communication to proceed by acknowledging that words like "machine" don't always conform to a single literal interpretation. I'm sure then that you agree with @AKrumbach and me that the opening sentence of the article was indeed not very informative, even if it was a little controversial and provided a fun thought experiment.