Computationalism is not something that is falsified any more than the mathematics employed in a theory are falsifiable. Computationalism is just the statement that certain physical processes are computations. Feynman diagrams describing the interactions of elementary particles involve particles exchanging each other according to Lie algebraic roots. In a sense this is a sort of computation. The physics is then modeled as a type of computation. There is nothing empirically testable about using this as a model idea. We can show that a particular computational model is false, but the idea that computation as a systematic approach to modeling is not testable.
LC On Wednesday, December 27, 2017 at 1:18:30 AM UTC-6, Jason wrote: > > Bruno has often spoken of the confirmations of computationalism known to > date, and of the idea that it has passed many tests and not been falsified > so far. I was hoping with this post to gather a complete list of those > tests. What things in physics would disprove computationalism, and what > tests has it passed so far? Below I try to collect a complete list from > memory but it may be faulty. I ask that others might add to this list or > correct things I have gotten wrong: > > Tests and statuses of each test: > > - Non-emulability of physical laws > - Non-discreteness (continuousness) of space time --- (somewhat > confirmed > <https://phys.org/news/2015-03-einstein-scientists-spacetime-foam.html> > ) > - Infinite computation needed for tiniest amount of space --- (mostly > confirmed > > <https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/222858/feynmans-question-on-the-mathematical-machinery-underlying-nature> > ) > - Quantum Mechanics > - Uncertainty principal (inability to collect exact and complete > knowledge about environment) --- (confirmed > <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncertainty_principle>) > - Indeterminancy --- (appearance of randomness is confirmed > <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_indeterminacy>, explanation > for being an "appearance only" i.e. first person indeterminancy vs. > fundamental randomness is made is plausible > <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Many-worlds_interpretation>) > - Born Rule? > - Quantization of Energy? > - Unitarity > - General Physics (I am not sure if these are required by > computationalism, and could use some more help on these) > - Linearity of physical laws? > - Time reversibility? > - Conservation of Information? (e.g. black hole information paradox) > - Finite Description of Quantum States (e.g. Bekenstein Bound > <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bekenstein_bound>) > - Link between Entropy and Information (e.g. Landauer's Principle > <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landauer%27s_principle>) > - Existence of a "Time" dimension? > - Consciousness > - Qualia - The non-communicable nature of some observations ? > - Finiteness - (finite memory / age / information content of > experience)? > > Are there other things I am missing? If any of the items I have included > are incorrect I would greatly appreciate any correction and further insight. > > Perhaps most interesting are any predictions which are presently > unconfirmed, as this would lead to predictions which could later be tested > and lead to a refutation of computationalism (or if passed, yield further > evidence for computationalism). > > Jason > -- 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 https://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
