A Conscious Universe

[The Grand Nudger]

Okay you keep saying this. Define the particular type of system and the particular type of effect.

Comp -is- the type of system, it it named after the described effect. A large amount of things qualify, but not -everything-.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computation

Right now, it seems to me the difference between one state-changeable system and another is

Computation requires more than just information and more than just steady states, or changeable states. They must be organized so that a logical function can be leveraged - and that's what states are so useful for -in- computation.

that an EXTERNAL intellect aribtrarily calls one "computation" and the other "just stuff doiong stuff."

I call "stuff doing computation" a computational system - stuff doing stuff may not be stuff doing computation.

Maybe, but why don't you include momentum as a variable?

The variables can stand in for anything you want, but this probably doesn't mean what you'll take from that statement. If you'd like to assume some value "momentum" we can put that through a computational system.

Or the mean elevation state of electrons as they absorb energy?

again, any variable you would like to assume works just fine -for doing work-.

Do you mean include them architecturally?

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.

a designation as a comp system is exceedignly specific, it includes alot of stuff because theres alot of stuff in the universe - sheer force of demographics - but that doesn;t make it any more or less general.

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.

Thats not actually how the effect is defined in it's barest sense...that's its most prevalent application - it;s most common use, familiar to us anyway, sure. No assistance is required (not even for our computers operation).

Switches are not naturally occurring.

Of course they are. Any area of a stream thats shallow enough to freeze quicker than the rest acts as a dam switch. It takes an input (in this case temp.) based upon that input it can be in one of two states (liquid or solid), the states correspond to an effect (stream flows/stream dams).

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.

plenty of steady state stuff in the world sure...but I'd explain that by reference to the behavior of stuff.....

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.

Again, already existent intellects don't need to assess anything. There's a computer sitting in a box right now that no one has ever assessed - it's still a comp system (and as above...doesn't require -us- specifically, even for it's operation). I'm uninterested, because it -doesn't apply-.