雙語暢銷書《艾倫圖靈傳》第9章:退隱山林(45)
There could be arguments about his thesis within this model, or there could be arguments about the model.
The discussion of Godel's theorem was, par excellence, one which accepted the model of a logical system.
比如說，對於任何形式系統而言，一個無法避免的問題就是哥德爾定理。Alan discussed the validity of the model itself,
圖靈對此做了一些討論，
In particular, there was the fact that no physical machine could really be 'discrete': Strictly speaking there are no such machines.
比如說，在現實世界中，沒有任何一臺機器，能夠做到真正的“離散”：嚴格說來，真正的離散機器是不存在的。Everything really moves continuously.
現實世界中的任何事物都是連續的。But there are many kinds of machine which can profitably be thought of as being discrete-state machines.
但是有一些機器，我們可以將之視爲離散的。For instance, in considering the switches for a lighting system, it is a convenient fiction that each switch must be definitely on or definitely off.
比如說，我們考慮電燈的開關，我們總是假設，它要麼是開着的，要麼是關着的。There must be intermediate positions, but for most purposes we can forget about them.
很顯然，開關還存在許多中間位置，但在一般情況下，我們都會忽略這些中間位置。That 'forgetting about them' would be precisely the element of 'selecting certain details' necessary to the scientific method.
“忽略這些中間位置”，這就是科學方法所必須的“選擇一些特定的細節”。He conceded that the nervous system was itself continuous, and therefore certainly not a discrete-state machine.
圖靈承認真正的神經系統是連續的，他寫道：神經系統本身，肯定不是離散狀態機。A small error in the information about the size of a nervous impulse impinging on a neuron, may make a large difference to the size of the outgoing impulse.
神經脈衝衝擊神經細胞時，任意微小的偏差，都有可能造成輸出信號產生巨大的差別。It may be argued that, this being so, one cannot expect to be able to mimic the behaviour of the nervous system with a discrete-state system.
有人認爲，既然是這樣，就不能用離散狀態機來模擬神經系統的行爲。
