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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=purple style='word-wrap:break-word'><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal>Russ, <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>This is exactly the mind-body problem, isn’t it? Could we be computational monists and resolved the mind body problem by saying that behavior is the implementation of mind? <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Nicholas Thompson<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Clark University<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><a href="mailto:ThompNickSon2@gmail.com"><span style='color:#0563C1'>ThompNickSon2@gmail.com</span></a><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><a href="https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/"><span style='color:#0563C1'>https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/</span></a><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal> <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><div style='border:none;border-top:solid #E1E1E1 1.0pt;padding:3.0pt 0in 0in 0in'><p class=MsoNormal><b>From:</b> Friam <friam-bounces@redfish.com> <b>On Behalf Of </b>Russ Abbott<br><b>Sent:</b> Saturday, November 7, 2020 12:44 PM<br><b>To:</b> The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam@redfish.com><br><b>Subject:</b> Re: [FRIAM] A/R theory<o:p></o:p></p></div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black'>You may be interested in my <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1dKv7Dt_2pO1OlUL7BesB31FyjpCsO_2E/view?usp=sharing">Minds and Machines</a> (also Springer) paper on the same subject.<o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black'><o:p> </o:p></span></p></div><blockquote style='margin-left:30.0pt;margin-right:0in'><div><p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black'>The Bit (and Three Other Abstractions) Defne the Borderline Between Hardware and Software </span></b><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black'><o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black'> <o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black'>Abstract </span></b><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black'>Modern computing is generally taken to consist primarily of symbol manipulation. But symbols are abstract, and computers are physical. How can a physical device manipulate abstract symbols? Neither Church nor Turing considered this question. My answer is that the bit, as a hardware-implemented abstract data type, serves as a bridge between materiality and abstraction. Computing also relies on three other primitive—but more straightforward—abstractions: Sequentiality, State, and Transition. These physically-implemented abstractions define the borderline between hardware and software and between physicality and abstraction. At a deeper level, asking how a physical device can interact with abstract symbols is the wrong question. The relationship between symbols and physical devices begins with the realization that human beings already know what it means to manipulate symbols. We build and program computers to do what we understand to be symbol manipulation. To understand what that means, consider a light switch. A light switch doesn’t turn a light on or off. Those are abstractions. Light switches don’t operate with abstractions. We build light switches (and their associated circuitry) so that when flipped, the world is changed in such a way that we understand the light to be on or of. Similarly, we build computers to perform operations that we understand as manipulating symbols. <o:p></o:p></span></p></div></blockquote><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black'><o:p> </o:p></span></p></div><p class=MsoNormal><span class=gmaildefault><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black'>In other words, it's all in our minds.</span></span><o:p></o:p></p><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal>-- Russ Abbott <br>Professor, Computer Science<br>California State University, Los Angeles<o:p></o:p></p></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><div><div><p class=MsoNormal>On Sat, Nov 7, 2020 at 9:35 AM jon zingale <<a href="mailto:jonzingale@gmail.com">jonzingale@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<o:p></o:p></p></div><blockquote style='border:none;border-left:solid #CCCCCC 1.0pt;padding:0in 0in 0in 6.0pt;margin-left:4.8pt;margin-right:0in'><p class=MsoNormal>This work does seem to be relevant, up to <span style='font-family:"Cambria Math",serif'>𝜀</span>-equivalence, to many of the<br>fibers in recent threads :) As the authors point out, the question of<br>deciding which diagrams <span style='font-family:"Cambria Math",serif'>𝜀</span>-commute is the business of experimental science à<br>la EricC's commentary on the history of chemistry. Also, the ideas expressed<br>in this paper appear to point in a similar direction to the<br>(model-theoretic) ideas I was attempting to land in the *downward-causation*<br>discussion from last week. Lastly, the thesis is related to questions of how<br>extensional (or purely-functional) computation arises from the intentional<br>(maximally-stateful) variations of a substrate. So, thanks.<br><br><span style='font-family:"Cambria Math",serif'>𝜀</span>-equivalence itself is interesting because it comes with a *competence<br>constraint* that prevents it from being a transitive relation, that in<br>general a =<span style='font-family:"Cambria Math",serif'>𝜀</span> b ^ b =<span style='font-family:"Cambria Math",serif'>𝜀</span> c <span style='font-family:"Cambria Math",serif'>⊬</span> a =<span style='font-family:"Cambria Math",serif'>𝜀</span> c is crucial to the theory. In other<br>words, while there may be a wide range of arm shapes that can be used as<br>bludgeons, one can evolve themselves out of the sweet spot. Dually, the<br><span style='font-family:"Cambria Math",serif'>𝜀</span>-equivalence condition provides a route to modeling *exaptation*, via<br>modal possibility. As p's belonging to the Physical domain vary, images in<br>the abstract theory vary into or out of <span style='font-family:"Cambria Math",serif'>𝜀</span>-equivalence with values belonging<br>to other problem domains. In particular, if we imagine that the R-map in the<br>paper is *actually* a structural functor as it seems to imply, we can<br>imagine another functor R' which specifies yet another problem space.<br>Natural transformations then, up to <span style='font-family:"Cambria Math",serif'>𝜀</span>-equivalence, provide a model of<br>exaptation. Because of the experimental nature of <span style='font-family:"Cambria Math",serif'>𝜀</span>-equivalence, I suspect<br>we would slowly discover an underlying Heyting algebra which would extend to<br>a topos via studying relations on sieves of <span style='font-family:"Cambria Math",serif'>𝜀</span>-equivalent structures. This<br>approach would formalize *how far from competent* a structure is wrt<br>*proving* a particular computation.<br><br><br><br>--<br>Sent from: <a href="http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/" target="_blank">http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/</a><br><br>- .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. .<br>FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv<br>Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 <a href="http://bit.ly/virtualfriam" target="_blank">bit.ly/virtualfriam</a><br>un/subscribe <a href="http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com" target="_blank">http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com</a><br>archives: <a href="http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/FRIAM-COMIC" target="_blank">http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/<br>FRIAM-COMIC</a> <a href="http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/</a> <o:p></o:p></p></blockquote></div></div></body></html>