[extropy-chat] cryonicist living life in reverse

[Eugen Leitl]

On Wed, Mar 14, 2007 at 04:30:50PM +1100, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:

>    The motion of the dust particles is certainly causally related, and

Dust particles are not a billard ball computer a la Fredkin/Toffoli.

>    dust cloud is also increasing in entropy with time. Functionalism says

A billard ball computer can be entirely reversible. The entropy increase
is not a computation requirement, it's just a case of evolving away from a high order
state, which is an infinitesimal island in the set of all possible states. 

>    that a computation can be multiply implemented, and the experiences of
>    any ensuing mind is substrate-independent. In principle, even with
>    your constraints, there seems to be no reason why a dust cloud can't

Whoa, there. There's a giant gap in logic, and no sign of a bridge across it yet.

>    think.
>    Putnam and Searle have used the rock example as a reductio ad absurdum
>    against functionalism.

It seems Putnam and Searle don't know the difference between a computer
and a rock. Given that Searle thought the Chinese Room was an example of
something other than the depth of his own ignorance, that's not a name 
with a lot of ring to it.

As to Putnam, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hilary_Putnam does not
strike me as an impressive accomplishment track.

So, how many angels can dance on the head of a pin? And did Adam
really have a navel? Can God really make a rock larger than she
could lift?

And do we really care?

-- 
Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org
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