It is a phisical definition of computation in the physical world, to distinguish what physical phenomena are computations and what are not. I don´t care about mathematical oddities.
Computation in this sense is a manifestation of teleological entities capable of maintaining his internal structure. Math do not compute. Computers do not compute, Books do not compute. Is people that compute with the help of them. Bruno marchall invoking church thesis to convince us flooding the list with comp theory talking about non computability does compute too . as well as any living being. That definition of computation is more restrictive and wider that the traditional one. Is more restrictive for obvious reasons. It is wider because it depart from the legomania of digitalism. Moreover it is an operational definition closer to everyday reality and includes all that is traditionally called computer science and biology (and sociology) within a wider physical framework. 2014/1/21, Bruno Marchal <marc...@ulb.ac.be>: > > On 20 Jan 2014, at 21:17, Alberto G. Corona wrote: > >> Computation is understood as whatever made by a digital computer or >> something that can be emulated (or aproximated) by a digital computer. > > OK. That's a good definition, and it is correct if ... we assume > Church's thesis. > > > >> So everything is a computation. > > Goddam! Why. Even just about what is true in arithmetic cannot be > emulated by any computer. > > I am afraid you might not really grasp what a computer is, > conceptually. See my answer to stephen yesterday, which shows wahy > Church thesis entails that most attribute of *machines* cannot be > computed by a machine. > > Or think about Cantor theorem. The set of functions from N top N is > not enumerable, yet the set of *computable* functions is enumerable. > > > > >> That is a useless definition. because >> it embrace everything. > > For a mathematician, the computable is only a very tiny part of the > truth. > > > > >> >> Everything is legoland because everything can be emulated using lego >> pieces? No, my dear legologist. > > Not veything can be emulated by a computer. few things actually in > usual math. Some constructivist reduces math so that everything > becomes computable, but even there, few agree. > In Brouwer intuitionist analysis he uses the axiom "all function are > continuous" or "all functions are computable", but this is very > special approach, and not well suited to study computationalism (which > becomes trivial somehow there). > > >> >> What about this definition? Computation is whatever that reduces >> entropy. > > It will not work, because all computation can be done in a way which > does not change the entropy at all. See Landauer, Zurek, etc. > > Only erasing information change entropy, and you don't need to erase > information to compute. > > > >> In information terms, in the human context, computation is >> whatever that reduces uncertainty producing useful information and >> thus, in the environment of human society, a computer program is used >> ultimately to get that information and reduce entropy, that is to >> increase order in society, or at least for the human that uses it. > > The UD generates uncertainty (from inside). > > >> >> A simulation is an special case of the latter. >> >> So there are things that are computations: what the living beings do >> at the chemical, physiological or nervous levels (and rational, social >> and technological level in case of humans) . But there are things that >> are not computations: almost everything else. > > That is the case with the definition you started above, and which is > the one used by theoretical computer scientist. > > Bruno > > > http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ > > > > -- > 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. > -- Alberto. -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
