

Human heart is a Turing machine, research on XBox 360 shows. Wait, what? - Evgeny
http://igoro.com/archive/human-heart-is-a-turing-machine-research-on-xbox-360-shows-wait-what/

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ars
Just because the halting problem can not be solved in the general case, does
_not_ mean it can't be solved for a specific program.

So the conclusion with the heart are wrong. The "program" that is a heart
might be analyzable as a halting problem. It's not a general purpose program
after all - it's a specific one.

~~~
roundsquare
Not to mention that the human heart has a finite number of cells. The amount
of "memory" (or whatever word you use for the heat) is finite, making it a
DFA/FSM not a Turing machine.

You could argue that the number of cells is so huge that we might as well
treat it like a Turing Machine, but given that the researchers were simulating
the human heart, I'd disagree with that.

~~~
Shprrrrt
From this(<http://www.well.ox.ac.uk/cvri/people/fellows/sears.htm>), we can
infer the apprximative average volume of a cardiac myocyte as 21 048 µm³.

Knowing that the human heart weights on average 300g, it makes about
10^(10(+/-0.5)) cells, hence 2^(10^10) states for a FSM built on it (rough
approximation).

Even though the simulated experiment had obviosuly less cells, I think that
the real heart can in practice be considered as turing equivalent.

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ars
He left out the most interesting part: how exactly a heart cell can simulate a
nor gate.

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unwind
This must be one of the loudest screams for a good-looking, ultra-geekily
designed T-shirt, ever. I'm thinking maybe something like this:
<[http://www.lafraise.com/Article/index/id/25>](http://www.lafraise.com/Article/index/id/25>);
but of course with NOR gates on the inside.

~~~
Shprrrrt
Especially since the NOR logic gate symbol almost looks like a heart...

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logical_NOR>

