Post by @debivort@drosophila.social

2023-09-14 15:41 UTC

@yoginho@spore.social @tyrell_turing@fediscience.org This thread is a fun read, but I wonder if you are both working from the same definition of computing to ask if cognition or physical processes are computation? If you each were to independently write down definitions of computation, how operationally similar would they be? If you have very different definitions, it's a disagreement of assumptions, not one that can be resolved through evidence. cc @NicoleCRust@neuromatch.social re: my comment in your thread on jargon.

Replies (2)

@beneuroscience@neuromatch.social 2023-09-14 18:52

@debivort@drosophila.social @yoginho@spore.social @tyrell_turing@fediscience.org @NicoleCRust@neuromatch.social This thread, while educational to me, is the opposite of fun. I'm sure @tyrell_turing@fediscience.org is used to it for having provocative opinions, but this style of academic attack turns many people off from engaging in discussions in the first place. If you find someone's take "absurd" why not approach it with curiosity and good faith instead? @NicoleCRust@neuromatch.social is a great example to follow - often disagrees, never attacks.

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@yoginho@spore.social 2023-09-14 18:57

@debivort@drosophila.social @tyrell_turing@fediscience.org The only useful definition of computation that I know of is: computable functions are those that can be computed on a universal Turing machine. Church-Turing tells us that further to this, lambda calculus & recursion theory yield the same set of effectively computable functions, so there is probably something robust to the concept of "computation." Some physicists call pretty much any change "computation." I just call that change.

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