I’m not sure you understand where quen tin is coming from. He would regard integers, list and “algorithms” in your sense as abstract entities, and maintain (as a point so fundamental that it’s never spelled out) that abstract entities are not physically real. At most they provide patterns that we can usefully superimpose on various ‘systems’ in the world.
The point isn’t whether or not abstract entities are observer-dependent, the point is that the business of superimposing abstract entities on real things is observer-dependent (on quen tin’s view). And observers themselves are “real things” not abstracta.
(Not that I agree with this personally, but it’s important to at least understand how others view things.)
There is a sense in which the view of the universe that just consists of me (an algorithm) receiving input from the universe (another algorithm) feels like it’s missing something, it’s the intuition the Chinese room argument pumps. I’ve never really found a good way to unpump it. But attempts to articulate that other component keep falling apart so...
I’m not sure you understand where quen tin is coming from. He would regard integers, list and “algorithms” in your sense as abstract entities, and maintain (as a point so fundamental that it’s never spelled out) that abstract entities are not physically real. At most they provide patterns that we can usefully superimpose on various ‘systems’ in the world.
The point isn’t whether or not abstract entities are observer-dependent, the point is that the business of superimposing abstract entities on real things is observer-dependent (on quen tin’s view). And observers themselves are “real things” not abstracta.
(Not that I agree with this personally, but it’s important to at least understand how others view things.)
There is a sense in which the view of the universe that just consists of me (an algorithm) receiving input from the universe (another algorithm) feels like it’s missing something, it’s the intuition the Chinese room argument pumps. I’ve never really found a good way to unpump it. But attempts to articulate that other component keep falling apart so...