Mind Over Matter?

[bennyboy]

To tie it in with your response....not all data exchange is computation...so, to me, not all data exchange should be expected to yield a mind (and so I'm not surprised when things exchange vast amounts of data without presenting consciousness, or something we would recognize -as- consciousness.

Why isn't all data exchange computation?  It all involves input, processing and output.  What more is there to computation?

[Neo-Scholastic]

Nestor, I would add to your list terms like intellect, conception, abstraction, and imagination and intentionality.

[The Grand Nudger]

Why isn't all data exchange computation?  It all involves input, processing and output.  What more is there to computation?

For the same reason that an IO port is not a computer...and particularly in that all data exchange -does not- involve processing.  That said, showing an exchange of data and processing is a good start, for me, to showing the potential for "mind". You don't think that an IO port or every exchange of information is computation any more than I do...I assume? Further (just to elaborate) neither of us thinks that all computation (if any) is "mind". That's why "but it's data": falls flat, for me....when it comes to floating minds. That's a start.....but the majority of the cliff is still above us, not behind us. As far as what more there may be to comp...you'll have to be more specific. What do you want the system to do, if anything? Are these exchanges you think of processing mathematical calculations - or are you simply able to -describe them- as such? Is a rock that falls off a cliff and hits the ground processing something...does it have a particular algebraic expression in mind? How, what? I know..mind you, that -we- can describe it that way...but we're irrelevant, in that...what's important is whether or not the rock is -doing- comp. I already think that we're comp systems (so there's no need to refer to our descriptions of things as an argument to that effect)...help me to agree that a falling rock is a comp system as well?

I missed a small bit earlier, not aimed at me (but referent). I don't think that -anything- can do comp (wet toilet paper isn't up to the task).. I think that anything -which satisfies the conditions of a comp system-...can do comp. I can be very creative..in imagining strange and (most likely useless) ways for any given thing to perform.....the list is long, but it doesn't contain "everything" so far as we know. Some materials, and some interactions between materials (otherwise suitable) don't meet the bar (which is why we don;t use them to make comp systems...but also why every pile of dust swept up on the kitchen floor doesn't up and start doing comp, eh?). Your proposition, for example...information doing information to information....there's no mechanism there, there's no explanation of how it satisfies condition - so I can;t comfortably claim that floating information..no reference to a structure or an interaction...can do comp. As I mentioned to emjay, at least with "aether resistors" there's some attempt to make it work. This isn;t to say that I think it couldn't.....I just haven;t seen an explanation of how...meanwhile, it;s fairly simple to explain comp by reference to the material and it;s interactions. Perhaps you can see why I prefer one explanation over the other....one is explanatory..... :wink: I suppose, put simply, theres work to be done which I;ve never seen so much as the first attempt at - and that sets off my heinous BS detector (not that my bs detector is particularly trustworthy..just giving you some insight into process..lol).

You got anything like that?
(I do..for your prop..btw, I just want to see how far off from each other we approach it..lol)

[Neo-Scholastic]

To tie it in with your response....not all data exchange is computation...so, to me, not all data exchange should be expected to yield a mind (and so I'm not surprised when things exchange vast amounts of data without presenting consciousness, or something we would recognize -as- consciousness.

Why isn't all data exchange computation?  It all involves input, processing and output.  What more is there to computation?

An interpreter is needed to assign meaning to the output.

[The Grand Nudger]

And? Interpretation isn't actually required for computation, though one can certainly use computation to assign meaning to outputs. I assume there is more to this, as it doesn't have much to do with Benny's comment?

[Neo-Scholastic]

The point is that the results of a computation have no inherent meaning. They require interpretation.

[Mudhammam]

The point is that the results of a computation have no inherent meaning. They require interpretation.

And there is something that is doing the interpreting but absent of input and output? Why is this independent interpreter nowhere reflected in the development and growth of our intellectual experience? Or are you claiming that the intellect is like like a hologram that receives ever more increasing bits of light from a higher region of being in need of no further explanation than the material compositions at hand?

[The Grand Nudger]

The point is that the results of a computation have no inherent meaning. They require interpretation.

-and interpretation and meaning can be assigned by any comp system.  That is -the very basis- of what they do...assign meaning to variables.  All function is built atop this ability.

[Neo-Scholastic]

The point is that the results of a computation have no inherent meaning. They require interpretation.

And there is something that is doing the interpreting but absent of input and output? Why is this independent interpreter nowhere reflected in the development and growth of our intellectual experience? Or are you claiming that the intellect is like like a hologram that receives ever more increasing bits of light from a higher region of being in need of no further explanation than the material compositions at hand?

I meant to direct my comment towards the physical operations performed on material systems in temporal succession. Input and output alone insufficiently accounts for the distinguishing properties of mind. A chain of efficient causes has no meaning until something outside that particular causal chain assigns value to specific physical features or events. For example, light reflected from a mountain entering a the hole of a pinhole camera produces an impression on its film that chemical processes develop into a photograph. Light is the input. The photo is the output. But the photo isn't  about  the  mountain. Those are just two arbitrary points in the seamless causal chain, points that must be seen as significant to an outside observer. 

[The Grand Nudger]

Input and output alone insufficiently accounts for the distinguishing properties of mind.

-it may, but not based upon your comment, nor has anyone proposed that mind is input and output alone. Your example would not be what I'd call computation - unless we're talking a digital camera ( a comp system)..then the input and output is "about" whatever format the camera is programmed for-to the camera (and further, this is "about" the states of a machine), and to us it's "about" a mountain. Translation.