Question

Imagine a rock in the shape of a chessboard with pieces in a certain configuration.

Throw the rock down a particular hill. The hill is shaped in such a way that, given the correct throw, the chessboard-rock will be chipped and flinted in a deterministic way as it rolls and bounces down.

At the end of this very large, very specific hill, the rock has been "carved" by the hill into the shape of a sentence "bishop to e4", which happens to be the "best" move.

Has the hill performed a computation corresponding to a chess algorithm?

And furthermore, are all rocks falling down hills performing some kind of computation, and is it only a matter of interpretation whether every falling rock could be said to be computing consciousness?

Answer 1

The shaping of a rock by natural processes to resemble a sentence about a chess move does not inherently constitute a computation in the conventional sense. Computation involves intentional transformation of input data, and while physical processes are deterministic, they are not directed by a purposeful entity.

Step-by-step explanation:

When a rock is shaped by its journey down a hill into a sentence that corresponds to a chess move, this does not mean the hill has performed a computation in the same way a computer does. A computation typically refers to an intentional process that transforms input data into a meaningful output. While a deterministic transformation of the rock occurred, labeling it as computation stretches the definition because there's no evidence of intent or purpose behind the process, unlike in the operation of designed computational systems. However, one could argue from a philosophical standpoint that the universe is constantly 'computing' as it undergoes physical interactions, but this is a conceptual stretch and doesn't reflect the structured and purposeful computation observed in devices like computers or the brain's information processing.

In the context of the physical sciences, the event described can be better understood through the lens of physics rather than computation. The hill and the rock are part of a closed system obeying the laws of physics, which determined the outcome based on initial conditions, not an algorithm computing the best chess move. As such, it would be a matter of interpretation to claim that every physical interaction or transformation is computing.