On Thursday, March 7, 2013 5:21:48 PM UTC-5, Stephen Paul King wrote: > > On 3/7/2013 12:04 PM, Craig Weinberg wrote: > > If you have ever worked with Terminal Servers, RDP, Citrix Metaframe, > > or the like (and that's what I have been doing professionally every > > day for the last 14 years), you will understand the idea of a Thin > > Client architecture. Thin clients are as old as computing, and some of > > you remember as I do, devices like acoustic couplers where you can > > attach a telephone handset to a telephone cradle, so that the mouth > > ends of the handset and the earpiece ends could squeal to each other. > > In this way, you could, with nothing but a keyboard and a printer, use > > your telephone to allow you access to a mainframe computer at some > > university. > > > > The relevance here is that the client end is thin computationally. It > > passes nothing but keystrokes and printer instructions back and forth > > as acoustic codes. > > > > This is what an mp3 file does as well. It passes nothing but binary > > instructions that can be used by an audio device to vibrate. Without a > > person's ear there to be vibrated, this entire event is described by > > linear processes where one physical record is converted into another > > physical record. Nothing is encoded or decoded, experienced or > > appreciated. There is no sound. > > > > Think about those old plastic headphones in elementary school that > > just had hollow plastic tubes as connectors - a system like that > > generates sound from the start, and the headphones are simply funnels > > for our ears. That's a different thing from an electronic device which > > produces sound only in the earbuds. > > > > All of these discussions about semiotics, free will, consciousness, > > AI...all come down to understanding the Thin Client. The Thin Client > > is Searle's Chinese Room in actual fact. You can log into a massive > > server from some mobile device and use it like a glove, but that > > doesn't mean that the glove is intelligent. We know that we can > > transmit only mouseclicks and keystrokes across the pipe and that it > > works without having to have some sophisticated computing environment > > (i.e. qualia) get communicated. The Thin Client exposes Comp as > > misguided because it shows that instructions can indeed exist as > > purely instrumental forms and require none of the semantic experiences > > which we enjoy. No matter how much you use the thin client, it never > > needs to get any thicker. It's just a glove and a window. > > > > -- > Hi Craig, > > Excellent post! You have nailed computational immaterialism where > it really hurts. Computations cannot see, per the Turing neo-Platonists, > any hardward at all. This is their view of computational universality. > But here in the thing, it is the reason why they have a 'body problem'. > For a Platonistic Machine, there is no hardware or physical world at > all. So, why do I have the persistent illusion that I am in a body and > interacting with another computation via its body? > > The physical delusion is the thin client, to use your words and > discussion. >
Thanks Stephen! Right, if we were just logging into accounts in Platonia, where does a body illusion come in handy? Craig > -- > Onward! > > Stephen > > > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
