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> instructions are data.

is an insight I've often seen attributed to von Neumann, but isn't it just the basic idea of a universal Turing machine? - one basic machine whose data encode the instructions+data of an arbitrary machine. What was von Neumann's innovation here?

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Turing machines' instructions are different from their data; a Turing machine has a number of states that it flips between depending on what it reads from the tape.

GP is referring to universal Turing machines (those that can emulate an arbitrary Turing machine) and not a specific Turing machine.

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