> Computation does not have anything essential to it that makes it different from other "atoms jumping around" other than it produces outputs that we find interesting.
This is not true. Computing is a system where the physical hardware (the computer) is following rules that are explicitly encoded in itself - you can analyze the system and discover where and how the program it is following is encoded (as we did with DNA).
In contrast, non-computational physical processes are following the laws of physics which are not encoded anywhere.
A simple way to test this difference is to check whether there is some way, at least in principle, to get the computer to perform a different computation. For a cell, we have successfully done this: change the DNA, and the output changes, without affecting the computer itself. With a system simply evolving according to physical laws there is no way to change its behavior.
At best, you can claim that the universe itself is a computer, and all fields/particles are the symbols that it is manipulating (the laws of physics being then part of the internal implementation, akin to microcode in a CPU).
> This is not true. Computing is a system where the physical hardware (the computer) is following rules that are explicitly encoded in itself - you can analyze the system and discover where and how the program it is following is encoded (as we did with DNA).
1) No. The rules are just physics. Electric signals going through physical material.
2) Why is this event relevant? I can say the same about water pipes in a sweage system . The way the water moves through pipes is encoded in the design and connections of the pipes. You can inspect it to figure out how it behaves.
I've yet to see a model of consciousness that does not imply that the sewage system is conscious.
> 1) No. The rules are just physics. Electric signals going through physical material.
This is the wrong level of abstraction. Sure, ultimately everything happening in the CPU is electrical, but still the rules controlling what is shown on the screen are encoded in the OS code. If you encoded the same program in a mechanical computer, you would get the same results. It's not the electrical rules that are important, it's the program.
> 2) Why is this event relevant? I can say the same about water pipes in a sweage system . The way the water moves through pipes is encoded in the design and connections of the pipes. You can inspect it to figure out how it behaves.
Yes, I believe you can say that this system is performing a computation. I'm not sure if you can make a Turing complete computer in this way (I'm not sure how you could encode an If), but for example you can definitely write a program (arrange some pipes) to do some basic arithmetic.
> I've yet to see a model of consciousness that does not imply that the sewage system is conscious.
The claim is "Consciousness is a computation", not "any kind of computation is a form of consciousness". So, there is no immediate contradiction between believing "my consciousness is a computational process" and "this pocket watch is not conscious". Just like I can beleieve that consciousness is a physical phenomenon without believing that rocks are conscious.
Sure, we can't discount that possibility. But, as far as we know, the laws of physics are not encoded anywhere, they just exist in an abstract sense. This is similar to the axioms of, say, Euclidean geometry: they exist, but are not part of the system that they "govern", circles and squares don't contain the laws that define them.
This is not true. Computing is a system where the physical hardware (the computer) is following rules that are explicitly encoded in itself - you can analyze the system and discover where and how the program it is following is encoded (as we did with DNA).
In contrast, non-computational physical processes are following the laws of physics which are not encoded anywhere.
A simple way to test this difference is to check whether there is some way, at least in principle, to get the computer to perform a different computation. For a cell, we have successfully done this: change the DNA, and the output changes, without affecting the computer itself. With a system simply evolving according to physical laws there is no way to change its behavior.
At best, you can claim that the universe itself is a computer, and all fields/particles are the symbols that it is manipulating (the laws of physics being then part of the internal implementation, akin to microcode in a CPU).