Dear Craig, On Wednesday, January 22, 2014 9:19:54 AM UTC-5, Craig Weinberg wrote: > > > > On Tuesday, January 21, 2014 11:08:45 PM UTC-5, Liz R wrote: >> >> On 22 January 2014 15:04, Craig Weinberg <[email protected]> wrote: >> >>> Computation is the nested, recursive enumeration of uniform symbolic >>> bodies. The effectiveness of computation derives from its metaphorical >>> application to material bodies, which can, through physical properties, be >>> manipulated to deliver results which satisfy our expectations. >>> >> >> Sorry to be dense but what *is* "the nested, recursive enumeration of >> uniform symbolic bodies" ? >> > > I think that it's a reflection of the Totality as seen from a hypothetical > exterior. If you look at a crowd of people from a the top of a building, > you can count them, you can count the number of times someone joins the > crowd, you can count the rate that the crowd grows, you can count the rate > that growth grows, etc. It's derivative abstraction that can be made useful > in prediction and control of things that behave like crowds. If you want to > know something about the individuals in the crowd, computation is much less > relevant. You have to break them down into symbolic categories that act > like uniform data objects...which they are not. >
Ah, how easy is it to mistake the Map for the Territory. > > >> >>> Computation is not consciousness or sensation. It has no qualities of >>> its own, and a computer would be just as happy producing Mandelbrot sets as >>> noise, just as abacus beads are just as happy in a pattern that we might >>> find meaningful versus one which seems random. >>> >> >> I'm not sure if you are trying to imply something about the nature of the >> brain and consciousness here, or not. Presumably brain cells "would be just >> as happy" recognising granny or solving equations - that is, brain cells >> take in signals from other brain cells, and if the sum of these exceeds >> some threshold, they send out a signal of their own. This seems fairly >> similar to what NAND gates do inside a computer. (Or what the cogs in a >> difference engine do, or the floating weights in the Olympia computer do, >> etc.) >> >> So one could equally well say, "what brain cells do is not consciousness >> or sensation". Yes presumably brain cells, when lumped together into a >> brain, manage to *produce* consciousness and sensation, and apparently >> they do this through a process that is at least somewhat similar to what >> the logic gates inside computers do. >> >> So, to clarify, are you claiming that consciousness *cannot be produced >> by* computation, or just making the observation that the process of >> computation is not the same thing as consciousness or sensation, much as my >> brain isn't the same thing as my thoughts? >> >> -- 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. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
