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Your argument is solely based on the rather odd semantics you ascribe to the term "computer". In common contemporary parlance, hardly anyone would call an abacu

Your argument is solely based on the rather odd semantics you ascribe to the term "computer". In common contemporary parlance, hardly anyone would call an abacus or a waterfall a 'computer' just because you can use such things. Conversely, I think you would not cease to call a desktop PC a computer if it is solely used for playing games and never used for 'making computations'. When people call a thing a 'computer' they mean that it can run (potentially complex) algorithms to produce outputs based on inputs, in many cases it would also be assumed that it has memory, and it would not have much in the way of direct physical interactions with the world (although it might be part of systems that have such interactions). Based on these notions, it seems very valid to interpret brains as some kind of computer, made out of cells instead of metal and silicon, and formed by evolutionary pressure instead of human engineering.

mjburgess 8y ago
Yes, and I'm calling your view here incoherent or, at least, mistaken. It isnt valid to interpret brains this way. An "algorithm" isnt something a physical system can "run". These are observer-relative properties a system instantiates because of our use of it. A brain is a physical system and our model of it should be a causal model in terms of its intrinsic properties that do not "disappear" when not in use. A digital computer is an oscillating electrical field across a piece of silicon whose oscillations "correspond" to steps in an "algorithm" but only to an observer who imposes those correspondances. The program "1 + 1" on a digital computer is some state transitions of the cpu's electrical state -- it is an algorithm only when we impose an meaning on those oscillations that they do not themselves have. There is no physical distinction in the "waterfall computer" and "digital computer" that bares on them being computers. They are both computers in exactly the same way. We havent gone to the length of a water-to-lcd display, but there's no reason we couldnt. Water falling over a series of moveable rocks can (easily) be arranged to display the result of "1 + 1" on an LCD (eg., bucket/pixel, with water level = intensity, pipes to handle "graphics").
- msamwald 8y ago
  It is your view that is incoherent. A brain and and a PC are physical systems that work based on causal physical mechanisms. Both can run algorithms, e.g., my brain and a computer can both instantiate the same algorithm, albeit in very different ways. Your argument actually seems to be based on some notion of function, or extrinsic utility, or teleology of some sort, i.e., computers are artifacts created for a specific use, while animals and their brains just exist in themselves, or something to that effect?

mjburgess 8y ago

Yes, and I'm calling your view here incoherent or, at least, mistaken. It isnt valid to interpret brains this way. An "algorithm" isnt something a physical system can "run". These are observer-relative properties a system instantiates because of our use of it. A brain is a physical system and our model of it should be a causal model in terms of its intrinsic properties that do not "disappear" when not in use. A digital computer is an oscillating electrical field across a piece of silicon whose oscillations "correspond" to steps in an "algorithm" but only to an observer who imposes those correspondances. The program "1 + 1" on a digital computer is some state transitions of the cpu's electrical state -- it is an algorithm only when we impose an meaning on those oscillations that they do not themselves have. There is no physical distinction in the "waterfall computer" and "digital computer" that bares on them being computers. They are both computers in exactly the same way. We havent gone to the length of a water-to-lcd display, but there's no reason we couldnt. Water falling over a series of moveable rocks can (easily) be arranged to display the result of "1 + 1" on an LCD (eg., bucket/pixel, with water level = intensity, pipes to handle "graphics").

msamwald 8y ago
It is your view that is incoherent. A brain and and a PC are physical systems that work based on causal physical mechanisms. Both can run algorithms, e.g., my brain and a computer can both instantiate the same algorithm, albeit in very different ways. Your argument actually seems to be based on some notion of function, or extrinsic utility, or teleology of some sort, i.e., computers are artifacts created for a specific use, while animals and their brains just exist in themselves, or something to that effect?