Paper/Outline of a Mathematical Theory of Computation

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Scott, Dana (January 1, 1970). "Outline of a Mathematical Theory of Computation". local page: Oxford University Computing Laboratory Programming Research Group. 


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As one read this seminal paper/book, it should be noted that this idea is profoundly simple. To help better perceive this simplicity, Tai-Danae Bradley has a blog entry[1] The Most Obvious Secret in Mathematics on this matter. Further more, you can try to visit the page:What is a Thing?[2][3].

Assign physical meaning to data

Once order relationship can be expressed, data can be used to represent causal structures and therefore define decisions and event-based interactions. In other words, it is then possible to assign physical meaning to data. To see how partial ordering may contain physical meaning, please read the paper:Time, Clocks, and the Ordering of Events in a Distributed System[4] by Leslie Lamport.

A personal note

I manually transcribed the whole document into Google Doc. In theory, this can also be automatically converted to any other document format using Pandoc. An important point about this document is in its title. If we were to replace the term, Computation to Decision, this paper would have immediately mean a lot more to mere mortals without any loss of its correctness.

Related Pages

Dana Scott

  1. Bradley, Tai-Danae. The Most Obvious Secret in Mathematics. local page: math3ma.com. Retrieved Feb 24, 2022.  Tai-Danae Bradley
  2. Döring, A.; Isham, C. (2010). "What is a Thing?". local page: 753–937. ISBN 978-3-642-12821-9. 
  3. Heidegger, Martin (1967). What is a Thing?. local page: Regenery/Gateway. 
  4. Lamport, Leslie (July 1978). "Time, Clocks, and the Ordering of Events in a Distributed System" (PDF). 21 (7). local page: Communication of ACM.