Is your magic system Turing-complete?

Is your magic system Turing-complete?

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Yes

Do you even know what that means OP?

Yes; it means that it can be made to perform any arbitrary computation that it is possible to compute with any discrete set of data-manipulation rules.

i.e., you could build a computer out of it and make that computer solve any problem, given enough time and computational resources.

You can't solve all problems on a turing machine. See the halting problem and any undecidable problem.

>that it is possible to compute with any discrete set is data-manipulation rules.

Yes.
It's based around using emoticons as runes in digital ritual circles and activate them by sending them via SMS messages to the receiver of the spell.
Needless to say, knowing the person's email or phone number is like knowing his true name - dangerous and easily abused.

Basically, it's like a modernized version of ancient rune circles, except you've got emoji and smartphones instead of runes and circles.

Goddammit I wanted to hate this, but I'm incredibly interested.

Although, what's the purpose of emails/phone numbers if they're closely guarded secrets? Why would you have one if it's barely useful for communication and having one is a liability?

Not that guy, but you can't send without having one, right?

I have never wanted to kill someone on a book cover like I want to kill that douche.

Good shit

>See the halting problem and any undecidable problem.
The halting problem doenst exist, the problem assume an crash is a loop

What does this even mean? The halting problem is essentially a prof about mathematical objects.

Damn, this is awesome. Do you have any materials on this system you can share?

Yes, I'm sure you're smarter than all of the thousands of computer scientists and mathematicians who have thought about this before. I'm sure that you, an anonymous poster on an internet message board, can easily prove them all wrong. Somebody tell /g/; let it be known that Veeky Forums has solved the halting problem. Then we'll write a dissertation on it and claim our PhD.

MIT, prepare your anuses; Veeky Forums is coming to town!

Can you cast spells that are capable of casting spells, ad infinitum?

Depends. Does summoning a being that can summon more of its kind count?

No.

Pretty much the only thing that could try to be Turing-complete in my magic system is certain elaborately worded divinations, and all divinations here have something like these clauses I borrowed from D&D:

> The base chance for receiving a meaningful reply is 70% + 1% per caster level, to a maximum of 90%; this roll is made secretly.
> All auguries cast by the same person about the same topic use the same dice result as the first casting.

So you can never get enough certainty to build large programs out of, and you can't just have your computer run it again and again to get around the accuracy cap because it'll use the same roll each time.

You can sorta-kinda-technically-ruleslawyer argue that you get something Turing-complete by casting one of the spells that imprints or creates or summons something mindlike, but then you might as well simply hire a dude.

So long as you provide enough mana to do so.

You fundamentally misunderstand the halting problem.