If the salt and pepper shaker arrangement occurs by chance, does that make it a purported representation without actual representational content? Who’s doing the purporting?
Well, the simpler part of this is that representation is a three-place predicate: system A represents system B to observer C1, which does not imply that A represents B to C2, nor does it prevent A from representing B2 to C2. (Nor, indeed, to C1.)
So, yes, a random salt-and-pepper-shaker arrangement might represent any number of things to any number of observers.
A purported representation is presumably some system A about which the claim is made (by anyone capable of making claims) that there exists a (B, C) pair such that A represents B to C.
But there’s a deeper disconnect here having to do with what it means for A to represent B to C in the first place, which we’ve discussed elsethread.
Being able to find an isomorphism between a physical process some system is undergoing and a genuine computational process does not mean that the system is actually performing the computation. Accepting that would entail that every physical system is performing every computation.
Sure. And if I had a brain that could in fact treat all theoretically possible isomorphisms as salient at one time, I would indeed treat every physical system as performing every computation, and also as representing every other physical system. In fact, though, I lack such a brain; what my brain actually does is treat a vanishingly small fraction of theoretically possible isomorphisms as salient, and I am therefore restricted to only treating certain systems as performing certain computations and as representing certain other systems.
Well, the simpler part of this is that representation is a three-place predicate: system A represents system B to observer C1, which does not imply that A represents B to C2, nor does it prevent A from representing B2 to C2. (Nor, indeed, to C1.)
So, yes, a random salt-and-pepper-shaker arrangement might represent any number of things to any number of observers.
A purported representation is presumably some system A about which the claim is made (by anyone capable of making claims) that there exists a (B, C) pair such that A represents B to C.
But there’s a deeper disconnect here having to do with what it means for A to represent B to C in the first place, which we’ve discussed elsethread.
Sure. And if I had a brain that could in fact treat all theoretically possible isomorphisms as salient at one time, I would indeed treat every physical system as performing every computation, and also as representing every other physical system. In fact, though, I lack such a brain; what my brain actually does is treat a vanishingly small fraction of theoretically possible isomorphisms as salient, and I am therefore restricted to only treating certain systems as performing certain computations and as representing certain other systems.