Brent Meeker wrote:
> Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
> > Peter Jones writes:
> >
> >
> >>>That's what I'm saying, but I certainly don't think everyone agrees with me on the list, and
> >>>I'm not completely decided as to which of the three is more absurd: every physical system
> >>>implements every conscious computation, no physical system implements any conscious
> >>>computation (they are all implemented non-physically in Platonia), or the idea that a
> >>>computation can be conscious in the first place.
> >>
> >>
> >>You haven't made it clear why you don't accept that every physical
> >>system
> >>implements one computation, whether it is a
> >>conscious computation or not. I don't see what
> >>contradicts it.
> >
> >
> > Every physical system does implement every computation, in a trivial sense, as every rock
> > is a hammer and a doorstop and contains a bust of Albert Einstein inside it. Those three aspects
> > of rocks are not of any consequence unless there is someone around to appreciate them.
> > Similarly, if the vibration of atoms in a rock under some complex mapping are calculating pi
> > that is not of any consequence unless someone goes to the trouble of determining that mapping,
> > and even then it wouldn't be of any use as a general purpose computer unless you built another
> > general purpose computer to dynamically interpret the vibrations (which does not mean the rock
> > isn't doing the calculation without this extra computer).
>
> I think there are some constraints on what the rock must be doing in order that it
> can be said to be calculating pi instead of the interpreting computer. For example
> if the rock states were just 1,0,1,0,1,0... then there are several arguments based on
> for example information theory that would rule out that being a computation of pi.
Stathis would no doubt say you just need a dictionary that says;
Let the first 1 be 3
let the first 0 be 1
let the second 1 be 4
let the second 0 be 1
let the third 1 be 5
let the third 0 be 9
...
But there are good AIT reasons for saying that all the complexity is
in the dictionary
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Received on Wed Sep 13 2006 - 09:26:21 PDT