RE: [-empyre-] for example -

["Jim Andrews" <jim@vispo.com>]

I know it's scary to some, but the unconscious, if it exists, would operate
according to algorithms, Yvonne. Unless our minds have access to the
actually infinite, as opposed to some (however large) finite memory storage
and retrieval and processing, or our information processing capabilities
somehow transcend the notion of the Turing machine in some other way, the
mind can be modelled as an information processing system (whether we are
brains in vats or not) composed of programs, programs composed of
algorithms.

Just like people found Darwin's ideas unpalatable, the above idea in the
contemporary world seems to meet with disaproval or incomprehension because
it seems to 'reduce us to machines'. But just like Darwin's ideas don't
diminish humanity, similarly, neither does the idea that the mind's
processes are capable of being modelled, arbitrarily closely, via
algorithms. An algorithm is just a description of the steps of a process.

Darwin's ideas, as opposed to diminishing humanity, have helped us
understand not only the history of our species but our relations with other
creatures. And the processes of history. Similarly, the notion that the mind
is modellable via processes describable in algorithms will, I hope,
ultimately permit us more freedom in the soft machine, as opposed to further
enslaving us to mechanization. In any case, the truth about our nature is
preferable to a pleasant fabrication.

ja