News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:Does the entorhinal cortex use the Fourier transform? (2013) by TeMPOraL on Sunday July 15, 2018 @02:58PM (#17536469)
> but modeling a physical process computationally does not make the case that the process itself is a computation

IANA Mathematician, but I was under impression that it does exactly that, in a sense that if a physical process gives you results of an abstract computation, you can use this to get minimal bounds on energy requirements. Changing a bit has minimal theoretical energy cost in physical reality.

Re:Does the entorhinal cortex use the Fourier transform? (2013) by mannykannot on Monday July 16, 2018 @10:18AM (#17541401)
I guess it depends on if you think a computation is a manipulation of symbols. The sort of physical processes involved in a piano making sound are not symbolic manipulations, and being modelable through symbolic manipulations, or giving the same results (at whatever level of abstraction) as a symbolic manipulation, is not the same as being a symbolic manipulation.