Cyan, I’m not sure you about assertion that the fire isn’t performing a computation. For example, we could structure the fire’s environment such that in burning it performs a computation. But then one could look at any “natural” environment a fire burns in as something it is similarly performing a computation of. Also, any example you’d give of computations to distinguish them from fires burning may be viewable as energy passing through structured and/or “natural” environments.
I’m sure people smarter and more expert than I am have put good thought into this, for example in information theory.
Cyan, I’m not sure you about assertion that the fire isn’t performing a computation. For example, we could structure the fire’s environment such that in burning it performs a computation. But then one could look at any “natural” environment a fire burns in as something it is similarly performing a computation of. Also, any example you’d give of computations to distinguish them from fires burning may be viewable as energy passing through structured and/or “natural” environments.
I’m sure people smarter and more expert than I am have put good thought into this, for example in information theory.