I understand Computationalism as a direct consequence of digital physics and materialism: all of physics is computable and all that exists is equivalent to the execution of the universal algorithm of physics (even if an exact description of said algorithm is unknowable to us).
Thus strictly speaking everything that exists in the universe is computation, and everything is computable. Your option 1 seems to make a false distinction that something non-computational could exist—that consciousness could be something that is computable but is not itself computation. This is impossible—everything that is computable and exists is necessarily some form of computation. Computation is the underlying essence of reality—another word for physics.
But the word ‘consciousness’, to the extent it has useful meaning, implies a particular dynamic process of computation. Consciousness is the state of being conscious, the state of being conscious of things, a state of active cognition. Thus any static system can not be conscious. A mind frozen in time would necessarily be unconscious.
If consciousness is computed, then there are no necessary dynamics. All that matters is getting the right output. It doesn’t matter what algorithm you use to get that output, or what physical machinery you use to compute it.
This doesn’t seem quite correct. There are necessary dynamics—out of the space of all dynamics (all potential computational or physical processes), some set of them are ‘conscious’. There is no single correct output. There is a near infinite set of correct outputs—the definition of which is based on what the correct dynamics computes based on the inputs.
Consciousness is not the output anymore than a car is it’s exhaust or microsoft windows is a word document.
You can use the input->output mappings to understand and define the black-box process within because the black-box process is physical and so it is governed by some algorithm. But the algorithm is not just it’s output.
Computationalism means considering two computational outputs equivalent if they contain the same information, whether they’re computed with neurons and represented as membrane potentials, or computed with Tinkertoys and represented by rotations of a set of wheels.
No, not quite—computationalism via functionalism means considering two processes functionally equivalent if they produce the same outputs for the same inputs. It’s not just about outputs.
A key idea in functionalism is that one physical system can realize many different functional algorithms simultaneously. A computer is a computational system running physics on the most base level, but it also can have other programs running at an entirely different functional encoding level—like words written in letters that are themselves composed of sentences or entire books.
If consciousness is computation, then we have the satisfying feeling that how we do those computations matters. But then we’re not computationalists anymore!
Err yes and no. Consciousness is always strictly defined in relation to an environment, so speed is always important. But beyond that, how you do the comptuations matters not at all. There are an infinite number of equivalent algorithms and computations in theory, but the set of realizable equivalent algorithms and computational processes that enact them is finite in reality because of physics.
Another way of looking at:
There are many possible patterns of matter/energy that are all automobiles, or dinosaurs, or brains.
There are many possible patterns of matter/energy that are all conscious—defined as patterns of matter/energy that enact a set of intelligence algorithms we label “conscious”. The label is necessarily functional.
Your option 1 seems to make a false distinction that something
non-computational could exist
William Rapaport, in the paper PhilGoetz refers to, appears to exclude
the idea that the universe is performing computation.
He states:
… it could also be said that it is Kepler’ s laws that are
computable and that describe the behaviour of the solar system, yet
the solar system does not compute them, i.e. the behaviour of the
solar system is not a computation, even though its behaviour is
computable.
I would agree with you, that the universe is performing computation.
The idea is that everything in the universe is a computation run by
the universe. So yes, option 2 certainly.
But
functionalism
describes a philosophy where the mind is formed by levels of
abstraction. The substrate that performs the computation for any
particular level is not important. This is option 1.
So option 1 and 2 are not incompatible. They are context specific
perspectives.
I understand Computationalism as a direct consequence of digital physics and materialism: all of physics is computable and all that exists is equivalent to the execution of the universal algorithm of physics (even if an exact description of said algorithm is unknowable to us).
Thus strictly speaking everything that exists in the universe is computation, and everything is computable. Your option 1 seems to make a false distinction that something non-computational could exist—that consciousness could be something that is computable but is not itself computation. This is impossible—everything that is computable and exists is necessarily some form of computation. Computation is the underlying essence of reality—another word for physics.
But the word ‘consciousness’, to the extent it has useful meaning, implies a particular dynamic process of computation. Consciousness is the state of being conscious, the state of being conscious of things, a state of active cognition. Thus any static system can not be conscious. A mind frozen in time would necessarily be unconscious.
This doesn’t seem quite correct. There are necessary dynamics—out of the space of all dynamics (all potential computational or physical processes), some set of them are ‘conscious’. There is no single correct output. There is a near infinite set of correct outputs—the definition of which is based on what the correct dynamics computes based on the inputs.
Consciousness is not the output anymore than a car is it’s exhaust or microsoft windows is a word document.
You can use the input->output mappings to understand and define the black-box process within because the black-box process is physical and so it is governed by some algorithm. But the algorithm is not just it’s output.
No, not quite—computationalism via functionalism means considering two processes functionally equivalent if they produce the same outputs for the same inputs. It’s not just about outputs.
A key idea in functionalism is that one physical system can realize many different functional algorithms simultaneously. A computer is a computational system running physics on the most base level, but it also can have other programs running at an entirely different functional encoding level—like words written in letters that are themselves composed of sentences or entire books.
Err yes and no. Consciousness is always strictly defined in relation to an environment, so speed is always important. But beyond that, how you do the comptuations matters not at all. There are an infinite number of equivalent algorithms and computations in theory, but the set of realizable equivalent algorithms and computational processes that enact them is finite in reality because of physics.
Another way of looking at:
There are many possible patterns of matter/energy that are all automobiles, or dinosaurs, or brains.
There are many possible patterns of matter/energy that are all conscious—defined as patterns of matter/energy that enact a set of intelligence algorithms we label “conscious”. The label is necessarily functional.
William Rapaport, in the paper PhilGoetz refers to, appears to exclude the idea that the universe is performing computation.
He states:
I would agree with you, that the universe is performing computation.
I think you’re basically saying “Option 2”.
The idea is that everything in the universe is a computation run by the universe. So yes, option 2 certainly.
But functionalism describes a philosophy where the mind is formed by levels of abstraction. The substrate that performs the computation for any particular level is not important. This is option 1.
So option 1 and 2 are not incompatible. They are context specific perspectives.