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by TheRealPomax 3131 days ago
Okay, so all you've said is "Go is, interestingly, also Turing Complete". That is interesting and worth-posting-about information. In an attempt to illustrate the futility of the Mtg example with a Go example, you have in fact merely illustrated that in addition to Mtg, Go is ALSO interesting to look at.

Mtg can be shown to be Turing Complete in one (of quite a few, actually) subset of rules. That's cool, and unexpected to many, and worth reading about.

And that's true for any other example of things not usually associated with programming.

(Turing completeness is an algorithmic property, not a "thing" property, so a pencil and some paper, or a bunch rocks, are certainly not Turing complete: you need procedural rules as well, something Mtg has no shortage of)

1 comments

I know I shouldn't bite, but I just want to so bad...

>so all you've said is

Actually what I said was "a generalized set of the rules" for Go is Turing Complete. Go in itself is not, because the end-state of the game is indeterminate. Just as a "regular-ass" game of MtG without a very specific and artificial construction is not Turing Complete, in and of itself.

>That's cool

I can appreciate stamp collecting, and I don't want to say that it's an invalid use of time. There are plenty of worse hobbies. But my point is that any of an infinite, arbitrary, and inconsequential number of conceivable systems are "Turing Complete," and personally I don't find this very compelling.

How many books in the Library of Babel[1] describe a Turing Complete system?

>Turing completeness is/is not

I stated as much in a comment below, or you could have inferred the same by my interpretation of the XKCD comic, but thanks for assuming I'm incompetent and acting in bad faith.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Library_of_Babel

Are you making the distinction that most MtG decks are not Turing-Complete? Is that what you mean by "specific and artificial construction?"

I think most people assumed that Turing-Completeness requires a specific and artificial construction, which is where the disconnected (and downvotes) are coming from. Especially for something wasn't previously believed to be a model of computation at all, much less a Turing-Complete one.

You seem to be taking a very hostile stance against what, a detailed and researched article about a project you don't deem worthy enough for your interest?