Seeing red

[bennyboy]

...except that you aren't expressing the physicalist position at all.  All things are made of matter, but not all things can fly.  So too, all things are made of matter...but not every thing can think.

That's a strange comment, since only 1 of the 4 options I mentioned involved everything thinking. . . and even that under the specific circumstance that there is a physical interchange of information.

But tell me, what non-arbitrary standard can you say that differentiates between any particular bunch of stuff and "thinking?" All over the universe there are persistent states, and interchange of information, etc. Who's to say that a Galaxy, as its practically infinite particles do their dance in space, isn't receiving input, processing it, and outputting a behavior?

IDK, if you give the simplest processing mind....and I'm not sure why you would, then any old calculator has mind.  I think that "mind", as a term, is meant to express more than the range of ability of a pocket calculator.  Don't you?

Well, is there an arbitrary cut line, or is there a specific critical mass at which we can non-arbitrarily say, "This thing has mind?" Because if any processing has idealets, then I'd accept that there's mind all over the place-- just something so elemental that we can't comprehend it. But if it has to respond to a name and cry a little when you forget its birthday, that's a different issue.

I don't think that the simplest data processing represents mind, simple or complex, so I wouldn't know where a person who does draws that line.

Is there a line? Is there a minimal structure which can be said to be mindful? I think we're likely looking at a spectrum, so it may be that this is not an issue of reality, but just of what you personally are willing to call mindful.