Re: Lame philosphy

In article <dumbqi$13m4$2@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
John Wilkins <john@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

<snip>
They would seem to lie outside the arena of physics then.

Exactly! Recall my claim a while back that universal Turing machines are
abstractions, and that computers at best *approximate* UTMs. Same point -
information exists in the abstract models and data sets that represent the
physical things. To infer a causal role for information from our abstractions
of the living systems represented thus, is to to project our own conceptions
on the world. This is a Very Bad Thing to do in science.

But projecting our concepts on the world is the only way to do
engineering, and this applies to scientific instruments.

And at this point, people who don't understand UTM are not going to be
hired for a large class of programming jobs.

Now take the US dollar [1], it's supported by a promise to accept it for
payment of US taxes. Yet possession or lack thereof causes physical
changes.

--
"The power of the Executive to cast a man into prison without formulating any
charge known to the law, and particularly to deny him the judgement of his
peers, is in the highest degree odious and is the foundation of all totali-
tarian government whether Nazi or Communist." -- W. Churchill, Nov 21, 1943

.

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