Hi Gordana, Robin, John and FIS colleagues,
On 19 Nov 2012, at 14:05, Gordana Dodig-Crnkovic wrote:
Dear Joseph,
I agree with you. I am also against totalitarianism.
Computationalism is not the world, it is only a modeling framework.
It is parallel to mechanicism, but has stronger expressive power and
it has mechanicism as its proper subset.
Computationalism can certainly not exhaust all the possibilities for
us to relate to the world.
That much we must have learned from the history of science.
Nevertheless, computationalism (or info-computationalism) can be a
very useful framework
in a similar way as mechanicism was up to now perfectly fine under
certain conditions, within certain domains.
(Classical Newtonian physics is just fine in its own domain, and
relativistic corrections come first with very high velocities
while quantum mechanical modeling becomes necessary first at very
small scales.)
Info-Computationalism does not replace physics, even though there
are physicists working on the project or re-phrasing of quantum
physics
in terms of info-computation.
See Goyal and Vedral articles in
http://www.mdpi.com/journal/information/special_issues/matter
and Chiribella in
http://www.mdpi.com/journal/entropy/special_issues/unconvent_computing
We have just only started to exploit the potential of computational
framework with computing understood as natural computing
(information processing).
There exists more than one possible approach and more than one
possible framework and language for us to relate to the world.
Søren uses different framework in addressing cybersemiotic aspects.
You have logic in focus.
There is no absolute reference frame that would dictate one and only
approach. There must be place for diversity.
Hopefully all of the views will eventually be related and understood
in the common context of knowledge production
of humans and other intelligent (adaptive, learning, communicating)
agents.
All the best,
Gordana
I think that we should keep distinct two things:
1) The use of machines or computations as metaphor. Some can be good
metaphor, some can be bad. I agree with Gordana when comp refer to the
metaphors. Such metaphors can be helpful in many fields, like biology
but also physics.
2) The computationalist hypothesis in the philosophy of mind/cognitive
science (hereafter denoted by "comp"). This is no more metaphorical.
As I state it, the comp hypothesis is the hypothesis that there exists
a level of description of the "brain" (whatever needed for
consciousness, it can include the body and even some finite part of
the environment). It is not metaphorical because when you accept a
digital brain as prosthesis, you get a real thing, not a metaphor, and
you survive (comp is correct), or you don't survive (comp is false, or
the level has been wrongly chosen).
In this setting, it can be shown that NO sound machines at all can
know for sure what is her level of substitution. In fact no machine
can know which machine she is, and the choice of the substitution
level is always somehow risky. In that sense, comp warns against
taking the metaphor too much seriously, as usually the metaphor will
concern some level of description, and we can never be sure if we have
chosen the correct level.
Then the comp hypothesis has important consequences in the fundamental
realm. It makes it possible to reduce the mind body problem to the
problem of extracting the stable belief in in a physical reality from
the statistical interference of the many machine dream which exist
already in the models of elementary arithmetic. This is not well
known, but has been verified by many people, and criticized only by
"sunday" type of philosophy, often by people who take for granted the
existence of a *primitive* physical universe (Aristotle theology).
Let me comment also on Feynman (in "The Character of Physical Law",
quoted by Gordana) :
The goal of computationalism when it comes to understanding physics
is nicely described by Feynman:
"It always bothers me that, according to the laws as we understand
them today, it takes a computing machine an infinite number of
logical operations to figure out what goes on in no matter how tiny
a region of space, and no matter how tiny a region of time. How can
all that be going on in that tiny space? Why should it take an
infinite amount of logic to figure out what one tin piece of space/
time is going to do? So I have often made the hypothesis that
ultimately physics will not require a mathematical statement, that
in the end machinery will be revealed, and the laws will turn to be
simple, like the checker board with all its apparent complexities."
Richard Feynman in The Character of Physical Law
Since Feynman wrote this, we can say now that we know why, if comp is
correct, the physical reality, whatever it is, as to appear like that.
Indeed, anything like a physical appearance for some observer is
determined by *all* computations, existing in arithmetic, going
through the relevant comp state (at the correct description level or
below) of the observer. This entails that there is a priori infinite
amount of information in any piece of "matter", including tiny portion
of space-time. In fact many qualitative, and some quantitative feature
of the formulation by Everett of QM are "theorem" of arithmetic, when
comp is assumed.
The distinction between 1) and 2) above is crucial with respect of the
problem of reductionism. Taking too much seriously some computing
metaphor can be reductionist. Yet the comp hypothesis is almost the
entire opposite: it can constructively break down all reductionist
conception of the machine, and it explains the crucial importance of
distinguishing the many points of view already available by the
(universal) machines.
On 21 Nov 2012, at 08:29, Robin Faichney wrote:
I hope this doesn't seem arrogant, but I feel it appropriate to
reiterate and emphasize some recent themes:
There is only one ruler in each domain, but there are many domains. A
mechanistic (in the broadest, perhaps fashionable sense) understanding
at one level or set of levels does not necessarily conflict with a
human-centric understanding at a different level or set. Being humans,
after all, there is nothing more natural to us than an anthropocentric
stance. But it should be recognised for what it is, and not extended
to inappropriate realms. The distinction between arts and humanities
on one side and sciences on the other is no longer as clear as it once
seemed, but it cannot just be dropped and forgotten altogether. The
horse must be chosen to suit the course. There is no single almighty
king, thank god!
I agree a lot with this. High level computer science + the comp
hypothesis blur the difference between human and exact science, and at
the same time explain where the feeling of a difference comes from,
and why such feeling is necessarily genuine from the first person
perspective.
On 19 Nov 2012, at 17:43, John Collier wrote:
Dear folks,
Overall, I agree with Gordana. I have one, perhaps very large,
correction though. I will go through this bit by bit (no pun
intended). I have been planning to jump into this discussion, but a
visit here (UFBA) by Stewart Newman has kept me busy. He gave lots
of examples of non-computable processes in development in showing
that developmental units could be retained through changes in both
function and genes.
I am not sure I understand why this would contradict computability *at
some level* (comp). But I guess this can make *some* computing
metaphor, at some level, shown being non genuine.
Gerd Muller had told me this almost ten years ago, but Stewart has
some remarkable new cases, some of which have implications for
evolution and phylogeny.
I would be interested by some links. Comp does entail the existence of
non-comp process in our neighborhood, but I am not sure that life
exploits them. It is not logically impossible though, but this would
put our level description in the infinitely low. Thanks,
Bruno
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
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