On Sun, Jun 24, 2018 at 5:35 AM, Russell Standish <[email protected]> wrote:
*>> * If I define physics as the thing that can tell the difference >> between a correct computation and a incorrect computation and between a >> corrupted memory and a uncorrupted memory, and as long as we're at this >> philosophic meta level that's not a b ad definition, then I don't think >> anything is below physics. > > > *> If you define physics that way, then you are using the term > differently to Bruno, for whom physics is very definitely phenomenology - > tables, chairs, billiard balls, electrons and such.* Phenomenology is about direct experience and consciousness, if that is not the result of the soul and be beyond the scientific method then it must be produced by a calculation, and a very big one too. Big calculations are made of lots of smaller calculations, but how can pure numbers have a working memory that can remember what the answer to the small calculation is? Matter can remember things because an electron in an atom can be in different orbitals and be in different states and that property can be used to record information, but pure numbers are unchanging and unchangeable. How can the integer "7" be in a different state? You could claim the correct answer to the big calculation already exists in Plato's etherial universe so it doesn't need to actually calculate it, but if so incorrect answers exist in that world too and the are an infinite number of incorrect answers and only one correct one. Physics simply won't let you do some things so you can use that fact to arrange matter in such a way that it is incapable of making an incorrect calculation and has no alternative but to crank out the correct one. But with pure numbers anything goes and that is not a good thing if you’re looking for one needle in a infinitely large haystack. > *The real point is that with computationalism (in particular the > CT thesis), it doesn't matter what the computers are made of* A computer can be made of any thing but it must be made of some thing. And by "thing" I mean an object with the ability to exist in more than one state and yet still be recognizable. If an atom of silicon absorbs a photon we can tell that something has happened to it because its electron has moved to a different orbital in a excited state that is measurably different from its ground state. The atom has in a sense remembered what has happened to it, and yet the atom has not changed so much that it is unrecognizable, we can still tell its an atom of silicon and know that’s where to look to find one bit of information. But there is nothing comparable to that in the world of pure numbers, the integer “8” can’t interrogate the integer “7” and measure what state its in and deduce what happened to it yesterday because nothing can happen to the integer “7”, it can only be in one state. John K Clark -- 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.
