Re:What things compute?
by yellowapple on Monday August 31, 2015 @08:09PM
(#10149902)
> In conclusion I want to shatter our presumed consensus: computers do not compute. Not even computers. We compute. Computers just help us along.
Define "us". Define "compute". Seeing as the former is very fuzzy, and the latter is suggested by the article to be undefined, trying to use this to "prove" that brains are not computers is, well, nonsense.
Consciousness is a side-effect of electrochemical interactions. Nothing more, nothing less. Trying to believe otherwise - that consciousness is some "special snowflake" that can somehow exist independently of the machine which creates it - is about as folly as trying to believe a magical sky-wizard sculpted mankind from clay. Whether this counts as "computation" depends on how "compute" is defined.
Define "us". Define "compute". Seeing as the former is very fuzzy, and the latter is suggested by the article to be undefined, trying to use this to "prove" that brains are not computers is, well, nonsense.
Consciousness is a side-effect of electrochemical interactions. Nothing more, nothing less. Trying to believe otherwise - that consciousness is some "special snowflake" that can somehow exist independently of the machine which creates it - is about as folly as trying to believe a magical sky-wizard sculpted mankind from clay. Whether this counts as "computation" depends on how "compute" is defined.