A Conscious Universe

[bennyboy]

Not as organized as a comp system - thats why you can distinguish your pc from the water in a pond or "the rest of the universe"- for example. It;s a particular type of system that produces a particular type of effect - though it can be made with a variety of materials and lean on multiple different architectures (we're discovering more architecture now with QM computing).

Okay you keep saying this. Define the particular type of system and the particular type of effect. Right now, it seems to me the difference between one state-changeable system and another is that an EXTERNAL intellect aribtrarily calls one "computation" and the other "just stuff doiong stuff."

One of the more amusing questions ever asked about computation, and as yet unanswered. It is, in practical use and terms, a system organized such that logical functions can be performed upon variables.

Maybe, but why don't you include momentum as a variable? Or the mean elevation state of electrons as they absorb energy?

We can point to examples of computation more readily than we can explain computation in toto, if you ask me.

I would say the same thing about mind itself, so fair enough. However, it seems to suffer to the Heywood Paradigm: We are using definitions about things that are instrinsic to the human experience in making general definitions. So, we think of mind in terms of brain because we can only communicate about mind with other people (and, by generous inference, some animals). The same for computation: we define (maybe not explicitly, but at least implicitly) computation as the assisted processing of information in a way that is useful for people.

Right, when we "feed information" we're selecting physical states of an actual structure - that's how that's accomplished, it is an example of a computational system. It's like a train track for current. A simple example of architecture that everyone is familiar with is a circuit breaker. When then lever is in the "on" position contact is made and current can pass through - this is "true". When it is in the off position contact -is not made- and so current -cannot pass through. This is "false". Or, 1/0. Arrange enough circuit breakers just so and you have a computational system

Switches are not naturally occurring. However, binary or plural state-holding systems are: electron orbits, spin of particles, even momentum of larger bodies, can be seen as state-saving devices that are changed only when brought into interaction with other state-saving devices.

[quote]
The human brain is a system not created by people to organize and process information which someone feeds to it. . . unless that someone is God, I presume.

Not sure what gods doing in the discussion at all?

My point is that computation seems to be not an intrinsic property of a system, but of an already-existent intellect assessing a system's ability to usefully process data.

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This really depends on what set of philosophical views of knowledge we decided to go with. There are views of knowing that don't require a knower to know that she knows in order to know. I think the view I'm talking about is called externalism and the view you have seems to be internalism.

Sounds almost thread-worthy. Can we start with a link?