On naturalism and consciousness

[bennyboy]

When I say unlimited, I don't mean infinite. I mean that a small amount of data can serve as a trigger for all the technology at a mind's disposal, for example "A single mind could, based on just a little information, decide to push a big red button and destroy a planet. Or that same information could be that last drop in the bathtub that draws a 'Eureka!' and changes the mental functioning of billions of beings through the spread of a new idea."

That's a pretty major effect for a few photons, and at least figuratively I think you could see those photons as the input of a "transistor of destiny" (echoes ominously), or as a very very long-range gate.

Your not including all the work required to have such a scenario. You would need to build the bombs, place them all over the world, and connect them to a red button before anyone can press anything. The setup is the hard part, the button pressing is just the exciting bit. So you need a hell of a lot of photons, electrons, etc... just to get to your example.

Maybe. But it's still a big gate mechanism.