Mind is the brain?

[bennyboy]

I think you're grasping at straws now.  General purpose means that it can solve an array of math and logic problems..as well as a host of other functions (by leveraging those two preceding in tandem, for example).  A universal machine.  It's not a just light switch, or a calculator, or a comparator.   These would be examples of things that aren't general purpose, that aren't universal machines......that aren't computers.  Data could be numbers, symbols,  values, etc.  That's what makes it general purpose, universal, in the first place - the ability to do work with abstraction. If it could only compare symbols (a comparator), if it could only manipulate numbers (a calculator), if it could only determine values (a switch)..it would not be general purpose, and so it could not be a computer.

Don't tell me it "seems" circular, because that's no different than saying a toaster "seems" like a 747.  Point out the circularity, explicitly.  I'm, frankly, astonished...that you think there's a problem with computers and their definitions...rather than your own understanding of them.  Armed with nothing more than the definition provided to you, you should be able to determine whether an object is a computer or a rock, and whether "stuff is happening" or "computation is happening" without any help.  I wonder how many times you mistakenly attempt to respond to my posts with a melon...and sit there, perplexed...as to why you can't post to the web with it?  My guess is none, it never happens.  You already know that there's a difference between "stuff happening"...like the stuff happening in the melon, and a computer.  You knew it -before- I provided the definition.  You're  fishing for a term to prevaricate upon, a term like purpose.  Too bad.

Then that's a composition fallacy.  Are you saying the brain does all those things?  Nah, different parts of the brain do those things, and YOU see those different parts as a unified, integrated system.  That's like saying my room thinks because I happen to be in it.

A computer is only "a" computer because of the intent imposed by an external thinker-- people.  In reality, there's just a bunch of physics going on.  As for "data"-- you still haven't established what is or isn't data.