On 23 Dec 2017, at 22:27, Russell Standish wrote:
On Wed, Dec 20, 2017 at 12:49:16PM -0800, Brent Meeker wrote:
I don't know why he
insists on calling computationalism "mechanist" since it has
nothing to do
with "mechanisms" or "mechanical".
Mechanist just means related to machines.
Hmm... That could lead to the confusion with using machine as a
metaphor.
I use the term in the sense: it exists a finitely describable,
digital, substitution level such that I survive a brain/body
substitution made at that level.
The most developed, complete
theory we have of machines is that of the Turing machine, and with the
CT thesis, universal Turing machines.
Typo error: I guess you mean universal machine. (once you have the
Turing machine, you have a universal Turing machine as a theorem, and
CT is the thesis that the universal turing machine are universal for
all conceivable digital machines). That is the concept of Turing
computation encompasses all possible computations.
So Mechanism does include Computationalism, but potentially much more,
since hypercomputers (capable of much more than a Turing machine) are
conceivable, albeit strangely missing from our reality.
Near black holes some are conceivable. With mechanism we could test if
we are already there or not.
If you subscribe to Deutsch's Turing tropic principle, then mechanism
= computationalism.
Deutsch defines computation by quantum computation, which, in the
mechanist perspective put the mind-body problem under the rug rather
elegantly, but that cannot satisfy the universal machine, quantum or
not.
I use mechanism and computationalism as synonym. I vary for let us say
musical reason in the presentation. or, I make precise if I use a
variant. My definition (YD + CT) is the weakest possible logically, as
the granularity, nor the size of the "brain" involved are bounded in
any way, yet finite in all utilisation, like a computation on an
extendible tape.
Bruno
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Dr Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile)
Principal, High Performance Coders
Visiting Senior Research Fellow hpco...@hpcoders.com.au
Economics, Kingston University http://www.hpcoders.com.au
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