On 9/9/2024 5:25 AM, John Clark wrote:
*No. Mathematics can describe computation, but it is not computation.
That’s why the semiconductor industry exists, software alone is not
sufficient, in fact, software alone can’t do anything. If you
actually want to DO something, if you want something to change over an
interval of time, then matter is required. That's why the information
in a book can't do anything if it's just sitting on a shelf, that
information can only cause something to change if a person or, as
we've seen very recently, an AI, reads it. And both the person and
the AI are made of atoms. And atoms are physical. *
*Computation involves the manipulation of information, and the minimum
amount of energy needed to perform a calculation is greater than zero.
Also, the amount of information that you can stuff into a volume of
space is finite, if there is too much information then the volume
turns into a Black Hole where the information, if it still even
exists, is inaccessible. So information is physical and computation is
a physical process.*
*I generally agree with John, but I would point out that computation is
a physical process that realizes a mathematical process. Sure it's more
complicated because it depends on the physics, but that is incidental to
the computation. So it's kind of the reverse of using mathematics to
describe something. In a computational process it's the mathematics
that's essential.
That, in itself doesn't answer the question of whether consciousness is
computation, but nerves are physiological structures whose essential
function is transmitting information. So I would say consciousness
originates with the evolution of nerves and eventually the central
nervous system. I see consciousness has having several levels from
simple detecting and reacting to immediate surroundings, to internal
models of self versus others, to planning and projection, to language
and abstraction. So conscious is implicitly information processing, but
not all of it is what humans think of as being conscious, having an
inner narrative.
Brent*
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