HA, I think you’re right that fires can be said to be performing computations (in a deterministic universe). What the chess algorithm does that makes it different from a generic computation is goal-oriented actions driven by an explicit evaluation of possible outcomes. (Computation is necessary but not sufficient for this; I took a wrong step in bringing up generic computation.)
I’ll steal another analogy from Dennett. Your constituent molecules are not alive, but you are. Likewise, your constituent parts considered at a low level may not make choices, but you do. Both “life” and “choice-making” are properties of the arrangements of the bits you’re made up of. Being aware of making choices is another such property.
In my view, the worthwhile things to talk about when discussing a particular choice someone or something made are (i) the information available to the choice-maker, and (ii) the evaluation function it used to rank the available actions. I strongly reject the idea that such a discussion would be invalidated or made meaningless in a deterministic universe, which is where I think the “it’s dangerous to reify illusory choice” position takes us.
HA, I think you’re right that fires can be said to be performing computations (in a deterministic universe). What the chess algorithm does that makes it different from a generic computation is goal-oriented actions driven by an explicit evaluation of possible outcomes. (Computation is necessary but not sufficient for this; I took a wrong step in bringing up generic computation.)
I’ll steal another analogy from Dennett. Your constituent molecules are not alive, but you are. Likewise, your constituent parts considered at a low level may not make choices, but you do. Both “life” and “choice-making” are properties of the arrangements of the bits you’re made up of. Being aware of making choices is another such property.
In my view, the worthwhile things to talk about when discussing a particular choice someone or something made are (i) the information available to the choice-maker, and (ii) the evaluation function it used to rank the available actions. I strongly reject the idea that such a discussion would be invalidated or made meaningless in a deterministic universe, which is where I think the “it’s dangerous to reify illusory choice” position takes us.