**Links to**: [[Turing machine]], [[B The being of “mere” machines and “mere” propositions]], [[Iteration]], [[Translation]], [[Transduction]], [[Machine]] We do not yet have a full account of a _computer_, yes a working definition of [[Computation]]. Please check in again in the future. ### Standard definition >The earliest large-scale electronic digital computers, the British Colossus (1943) and the American ENIAC (1945), did not store programs in memory (see Copeland 2001). To set up these computers for a fresh task, it was necessary to modify some of the machine’s wiring, rerouting cables by hand and setting switches. The basic principle of the modern computer – the idea of controlling the machine’s operations by means of a program of coded instructions stored in the computer’s memory–was thought of by Alan Turing in 1935. His abstract “universal computing machine,” soon known simply as the universal Turing machine (UTM), consists of a limitless memory, in which both data and instructions are stored, and a scanner that moves back and forth through the memory, symbol by symbol, reading what it finds and writing further symbols. By inserting different programs into the memory, the machine is made to carry out different computations. > >B. Jack Copeland, p. 3 in “Computation”. In: Floridi, Luciano, ed. _The Blackwell guide to the philosophy of computing and information_. John Wiley & Sons, 2008. >Turing’s greatest contributions to the development of the modern computer were: > • The idea of controlling the function of the computing machine by storing a program of (symbolically or numerically encoded) instructions in the machine’s memory. > >• His proof that, by this means, a single machine of fixed structure is able to carry out every computation that can be carried out by any Turing machine whatsoever.” Ibid. p. 6. >“The Turing machine is an idealization of the human computer (Turing 1936: 231). Wittgenstein put this point in a striking way: Turing’s “Machines.” These machines are humans who calculate. (Wittgenstein 1980: §1096). > >It was not, of course, some deficiency of imagination that led Turing to model his logical computing machines on what can be achieved by a human being working effectively. The purpose for which he introduced them demanded it. The Turing machine played a key role in his demonstration that there are mathematical tasks which cannot be carried out by means of an effective method. > >Ibid. p. 7. ![[path dir 2.png]]