Mind is the brain?

[bennyboy]

No, that;s not what processing is at all.  Many things change state over time, that doesn't make them processors.  To be able to process data a system must be able to possess a state, and the state must be changeable, but this is only one (and the most basic) requirement even for processing..let alone computation.  Another not-so-subtle equivocation.

The state of an electron in its orbit IS changeable, and on multiple but discrete levels. And a galaxy is also processing, since the events that transpire in it affect what light leaves it: its intensity, its direction, etc.

But you are going to special plead, I'm sure, and argue that only those changes in state and resultant behaviors that YOU consider meaningful are actually computation.

Is it not arbitrary exactly which systems you call comp minds, and which you just think are shit happening?

Is the distinction between a rock and a pc as regards which is a computer arbitrary?  Ever tried to run linux on a pile of river pebbles?  I don;t think that "stuff" in the general has a mind.  I don't think that calculators have a mind.  I do think that a -computer- might, and I also think that we may be computers....but I don;t think that all minds would be the same.  After all, ours seem to be different from each other.  Hark back to the electro-chemical bit.  We know that emotion is strongly tied to chemical properties.  We know that emotional response varies between even two human beings.  I don't expect a resistance mind to share our experience there.  It may be able to understand what we mean, it may be able to predict our behaviors, but it wouldn't be any more similar to a human mind in that regard than human minds are to each other....and I would suspect a great deal less.  All bets are off, imo, if the machine mind is electro-chemical rather than resistance based...but even then....whatever chemical experiences it has would be determined by the ways that those chemicals act on it's structure, and if it were made of metal rather than cells..that could be vastly different.

Even the distinction between a rock and a PC is one of degree. A rock inputs light and outputs heat. It exactly calculates (by which I mean takes an input, processes through chemistry or physics, and ouputs something related but different) the right amount of heat to put out precisely. A PC processes in a much more complex way, but in the end, it's all just physics and chemistry, and the meaning you imbue in one system over the other is arbitrary. In fact, since all things in the universe are related by gravity, you could say that motion is itself a kind of processing.

You wouldn't. But I don't think you will provide a non-arbitrary definition for what IS to be called processing, either.