Honest curiosity: What do you think you'll get out of it? A big chunk of it seems to be about definition. A lot of it hinges on knowing more about consciousness (and state-of-the-art seems to be essentially nil on that topic - the position that consciousness is magic is still taken seriously). There's discussions about the "duality" between hardware and software: while certainly a rich area to make arguments, I'm not sure it's really impactful or interesting.
There seems to be little to no practical concerns addressed. Which is fine - chasing things just because they're intriguing shouldn't be looked down on. I'm just wondering if there's more to it, something that'd impact people writing software (even for fun) or designing computers.
Sure. For example, what it means for a program to be correct. "It's not a bug, it's a feature!" is a joke, but also a playful illustration of a complicated topic. It's worth thinking critically and clearly about these things, and will only become more relevant as formal verification & specification enters our field. It's especially useful when defining undefined behavior, or just implementing an imprecise spec. Analytic philosophy in general is summed up thus:
"When we have realized the obstacles in the way of a straightforward and confident answer, we shall be well launched on the study of philosophy—for philosophy is merely the attempt to answer such ultimate questions, not carelessly and dogmatically, as we do in ordinary life and even in the sciences, but critically, after exploring all that makes such questions puzzling, and after realizing all the vagueness and confusion that underlie our ordinary ideas." - Bertrand Russell, The Problems of Philosophy (https://www.gutenberg.org/files/5827/5827-h/5827-h.htm)
Sounds profound until you get into actually defining what a computer is. Re the computational theory of mind:
"A “computational theory of the mind” is along the same lines as having “a computational theory of the weather”, in which the earth is seen as a computer and the weather what it computes. It’s a metaphor that gives the illusion of understanding, without telling us whether tomorrow will rain or not — akin to using élan vital to “explain” life or scansoriality to “explain” propensity to climbing."
"such broad definitions can quickly degenerate into pancomputationalism: everything computes. And, if everything computes, computation is an uninteresting concept. The brain computes, but so does a piece of wood. Computation is simply another word for behaviour subject to (natural) laws. The Universe is a big computer, computing its own future — grand but somewhat vacuous."
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[ 2.6 ms ] story [ 32.3 ms ] threadThere seems to be little to no practical concerns addressed. Which is fine - chasing things just because they're intriguing shouldn't be looked down on. I'm just wondering if there's more to it, something that'd impact people writing software (even for fun) or designing computers.
"When we have realized the obstacles in the way of a straightforward and confident answer, we shall be well launched on the study of philosophy—for philosophy is merely the attempt to answer such ultimate questions, not carelessly and dogmatically, as we do in ordinary life and even in the sciences, but critically, after exploring all that makes such questions puzzling, and after realizing all the vagueness and confusion that underlie our ordinary ideas." - Bertrand Russell, The Problems of Philosophy (https://www.gutenberg.org/files/5827/5827-h/5827-h.htm)
Highlights from the table of contents:
9.3 John Searle: Anything Is a Computer . . . . . 360
9.3.5 Everything Is a Computer . . . . . . . . . . 367
9.7 What Else Might Be a Computer? . . . . . . . .375
9.7.1 Is a Brain a Computer? . . . . . . . . . . . .376
9.7.2 Is the Universe a Computer? . . . . . . . . . 377
Spoilers: you might be a computer, inside a computer.
"A “computational theory of the mind” is along the same lines as having “a computational theory of the weather”, in which the earth is seen as a computer and the weather what it computes. It’s a metaphor that gives the illusion of understanding, without telling us whether tomorrow will rain or not — akin to using élan vital to “explain” life or scansoriality to “explain” propensity to climbing."
http://researchblogs.cs.bham.ac.uk/thelablunch/2015/07/what-...
- nice quote from the link you posted.
http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/restaurant.guide/
And he was a central figure in the construction of the Buffalo sentence:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo_buffalo_Buffalo_buffal...