[skissane]

> A composition of numbers is also a number but a composition of atoms is something else and not an atom so I didn't really follow the rest of your argument.

That's not true. To give a trivial example, a set or sequence of numbers is composed of numbers but is not itself a number. 2 is a number, but {2,3,4} is not a number.

> Computers have a formal theory

They don't. Yes, there is a formal theory mathematicians and theoretical computer scientists have developed to model how computers work. However, that formal theory is strictly speaking false for real world computers – at best we can say it is approximately true for them.

Standard theoretical models of computation assume a closed system, determinism, and infinite time and space. Real world computers are an open system, are capable of indeterminism, and have strictly sub-infinite time and space. A theoretical computer and a real world computer are very different things – at best we can say that results from the former can sometimes be applied to the latter.

There are theoretical models of computation that incorporate nondeterminism. However, I'd question whether the specific type of nondeterminism found in such models, is actually the same type of nondeterminism that real world computers have or can have.

Even if you are right that a theoretical computer science computer can't have intentionality, you haven't demonstrated a real world computer can't have intentionality, because they are different things. You'd need to demonstrate that none of the real differences between the two could possibly grant one the intentionality the other lacks.

[soloist11]

> That's not true. To give a trivial example, a set or sequence of numbers is composed of numbers but is not itself a number. 2 is a number, but {2,3,4} is not a number.

That's still a number because everything in a digital computer is a number or an operation on a number. Sets are often encoded by binary bit strings and boolean operations on bitstrings then have a corresponding denotation as union, intersection, product, exponential, powerset, and so on.

[skissane]

> That's still a number because everything in a digital computer is a number or an operation on a number.

I feel like in this conversation you are equivocating over distinct but related concepts that happen to have the same name. For example, “numbers” in mathematics versus “numbers” in computers. They are different things - e.g. there are an infinite number of mathematical numbers but only a finite number of computer numbers - even considering bignums, there are only a finite number of bignums, since any bignum implementation only supports a finite physical address space.

In mathematics, a set of numbers is not itself number.

What about in digital computers? Well, digital computers don’t actually contain “numbers”, they contain electrical patterns which humans interpret as numbers. And it is a true that at that level of interpretation, we call those patterns “numbers”, because we see the correspondence between those patterns and mathematical numbers.

However, is it true that in a computer, a set of numbers is itself a number? Well, if I was storing a set of 8 bit numbers, I’d store them each in consecutive bytes, and I’d consider each to be a separate 8-bit number, not one big 8n-bit number. Of course, I could choose to view them as one big 8n-bit number - but conversely, any finite set of natural numbers can be viewed as a single natural number (by Gödel numbering); indeed, any finite set of computable or definable real numbers can be viewed as a single natural number (by similar constructions)-indeed, by such constructions even infinite sets of natural or real numbers can be equated to natural numbers, provided the set is computable/definable. However, “can be viewed as” is not the same thing as “is”. Furthermore, whether a sequence of n 8-bit numbers is n separate numbers or a single 8n-bit number is ultimately a subjective or conventional question rather than an objective one - the physical electrical signals are exactly the same in either case, it is just our choice as to how to interpret them

[soloist11]

> However, “can be viewed as” is not the same thing as “is”

Ultimate reality is fundamentally unknowable but what I said about computers and digital circuits is correct. We have a formal theory of computers and that is why we can construct them in factories. There is no such theory for people or the biosphere which is why when someone argues for intentionality or some other attribute possessed by both people and computers I discount whatever they are saying unless they can formally specify how some formal statement in a logical syntax (program) corresponds to the same attribute in people and animals.

This confusion between formal theories and informal concepts like intentionality is why I am generally wary of anyone who claims computers can think and possess intelligence. The ultimate endpoint of this line of reasoning is complete annihilation of the biosphere and its replacement with factories producing nothing but computers and power plants for shuttling electrons. The people who believe computers are a net positive might not think this way but by equating computers with people they are ultimately devaluing the irreducible complexity of what it means to be a living animal (person) in an ecology with irreducible properties and attributes.

I'm obviously not going to convince anyone who believes computers and algorithms can think and possess intelligence but it is clear to me that by elevating digital computers above biology and ecology they are devaluing their own humanity and justifying actions which will ultimately end in disaster.

[skissane]

> We have a formal theory of computers and that is why we can construct them in factories.

Formal theories and physical manufacturability are two different things, with no necessary connection with each other. People have been manufacturing tools for thousands of years without having any “formal theory” for them. People were making swords and pots and pans and furniture and carts and chariots long before the concept of “formal theory” had ever been invented. Conversely, one can easily construct formal theories of computers which are formally completely coherent and yet physically impossible to construct (such as Turing machines with oracles, or computers that can execute supertasks).

I’d even question whether formal theories of computation (Turing, Church, etc) were actually that relevant to the development of real world computers. One can imagine an alternate timeline in which computers were developed but theoretical computer science saw far less development as a discipline than in ours. The lack of theoretical development no doubt would have had some practical drawbacks at some point, but they still might have gone a long way without it. I mean, you can do a course in theoretical computer science and have no idea how to actually build a CPU, and conversely you can do a course in computer engineering and actually build a CPU yet have zero idea about what Turing machines or lambda calculus is. The theory actually has far less practical relevance than most theoreticians claim

> The ultimate endpoint of this line of reasoning is complete annihilation of the biosphere and its replacement with factories producing nothing but computers and power plants for shuttling electrons. The people who believe computers are a net positive

A very alarmist take. Personally I am at least open-minded about the possibility of an AI having human-like consciousness/intentionality, at least in theory. But even if we could build such an AI in theory, I’m not sure whether it would be a good idea in practice. And I absolutely am opposed to any proposal to destroy the biological environment and replace it with electronics. Some people may well be purveyors of mind-uploading/simulationist woo, but I’m not. Interesting philosophical speculations but no interest in making them a reality (and I think their actual technological feasibility, if it ever happens at all, is long after we are all dead)

[soloist11]

> Formal theories and physical manufacturability are two different things

Yes, two different things are two different things. I did not equate them but made the claim that a sequence of operations to construct a chip factory can be specified formally/symbolically and passed on to others who are proficient in interpreting the symbols and executing the instructions for constructing the object corresponding to the symbols. There is no such formal theory for ecology and the biosphere. There is no sequence of operations specified formally/symbolically for reconstructing the biosphere and emergent phenomenon like living organisms.

[skissane]

Synthetic biologists are researching how to construct basic unicellular lifeforms artificially. The “holy grail” of synthetic biology is we have a computer file describing DNA sequences, protein sequences, etc, and then we feed that into some kind of bioelectrochemical device, and it produces an actual living microbe from raw chemicals. We aren’t there yet, although they’ve come a long way, but there is still a long way to go. Still, there is no reason in principle why that technology couldn’t be developed - a microbe is just a complex chemical system, and there is no reason in principle why it could not be artificially synthesised out of a computer data file. And yet, if some day we achieve that (I expect we will eventually), we’d actually have the “sequence of operations specified formally/symbolically for reconstructing [microbial] life”. And once we can do it for a microbe, doing it for a macroscopic multicellular organism is just a matter of “scaling it up” - of course in practice that would be a momentous, maybe even intractable task, but in theory its just doing the same thing on a bigger scale. Just like how, factorising a ten digit number isn’t fundamentally different from factorising a trillion digit number, although the first is trivial and the second is likely to forever be infeasible in practice. Practically a very different thing, but formally exactly the same thing