I’m trying to understand why you’re finding mystery where I see none.
“Nonetheless, it is mysterious how physical systems with nothing physical in common can realize the same algorithm.”
Would you feel the same mystery in a playground where there were side by side swings, one made with rope and the other with chain?
Chain is not only made of completely different material, but is also flexible by a completely different mechanism than rope. Yet both are flexible and both can serve the purpose of making a swing.
The flexibility is emergent in both cases but a different levels. The flexibility of the rope is emergent at the molecular level, whereas the chain is flexible at the mechanical level.
“That suggests that the algorithm itself is not a physical thing, but something else.”
In the sense that the flexibility is something else. However algorithms (especially running ones) and flexibility do not “exist” unconnected to the physical objects that exhibit them. Just like the other guy pointed out the number four doesn’t exist by itself but can be instantiated in objects. Like a four having four tines.
Note in the above paragraph I was assuming a very big difference between an algorithm running on a computer, written on a piece of paper, or memorized by a student. Only an actually running algorithm is instantiated in an important way to your example. On paper it’s only representation being used for communication.
When you flipped to speaking of “the algorithm” you were talking about it as a attribute. It’s then very easy in English to equivocate between the two meanings of attribute, the conceptual and the reified. Flexibility as a concept is easily confused with flexibility as instantiated in a particular object. The concept resides in your head as a general model, while the actually flexibility of the object is physical. Well actually the concept in your head is physical also but in a completely different way.
Not sure what you find mysterious in all this. Something does or does not fit the model the concept describes. If it fits than it’s behavior will be predicted by the model and will match any other object that fits. Flexible things flex. Things running the algorithm for addition do addition.
mtraven,
I’m trying to understand why you’re finding mystery where I see none.
“Nonetheless, it is mysterious how physical systems with nothing physical in common can realize the same algorithm.”
Would you feel the same mystery in a playground where there were side by side swings, one made with rope and the other with chain?
Chain is not only made of completely different material, but is also flexible by a completely different mechanism than rope. Yet both are flexible and both can serve the purpose of making a swing.
The flexibility is emergent in both cases but a different levels. The flexibility of the rope is emergent at the molecular level, whereas the chain is flexible at the mechanical level.
“That suggests that the algorithm itself is not a physical thing, but something else.”
In the sense that the flexibility is something else. However algorithms (especially running ones) and flexibility do not “exist” unconnected to the physical objects that exhibit them. Just like the other guy pointed out the number four doesn’t exist by itself but can be instantiated in objects. Like a four having four tines.
Note in the above paragraph I was assuming a very big difference between an algorithm running on a computer, written on a piece of paper, or memorized by a student. Only an actually running algorithm is instantiated in an important way to your example. On paper it’s only representation being used for communication.
When you flipped to speaking of “the algorithm” you were talking about it as a attribute. It’s then very easy in English to equivocate between the two meanings of attribute, the conceptual and the reified. Flexibility as a concept is easily confused with flexibility as instantiated in a particular object. The concept resides in your head as a general model, while the actually flexibility of the object is physical. Well actually the concept in your head is physical also but in a completely different way.
Not sure what you find mysterious in all this. Something does or does not fit the model the concept describes. If it fits than it’s behavior will be predicted by the model and will match any other object that fits. Flexible things flex. Things running the algorithm for addition do addition.