The “standard view” looks like a straw view there. Brains—and computers, for that matter—do not just execute a mapping on inputs to produce outputs. They both have mutable internal state.
In mathematical terms, they aren’t functions f:I → O where I and O are spaces of all possible inputs and outputs respectively. At their simplest, they’re functions f:IxS → OxS where S is a set of all possible internal states.
With this in mind the Most Astonishing Fact isn’t really astonishing. A function that operates on constant input with changing state can still exhibit arbitrarily complex behaviour.
Sure, there’s nothing incompatible with The Standard View and The Most Astonishing Fact. And there’s nothing incompatible with The Standard View and a brain having internal states, or being arbitrarily complex. I tried to make both of those points in the essay, though probably not that well.
The point in this essay is that The Standard View is not useful for explaining how our brains perform high level cognition, even if high level cognition is consistent with The Standard View.
The “standard view” looks like a straw view there. Brains—and computers, for that matter—do not just execute a mapping on inputs to produce outputs. They both have mutable internal state.
In mathematical terms, they aren’t functions f:I → O where I and O are spaces of all possible inputs and outputs respectively. At their simplest, they’re functions f:IxS → OxS where S is a set of all possible internal states.
With this in mind the Most Astonishing Fact isn’t really astonishing. A function that operates on constant input with changing state can still exhibit arbitrarily complex behaviour.
Sure, there’s nothing incompatible with The Standard View and The Most Astonishing Fact. And there’s nothing incompatible with The Standard View and a brain having internal states, or being arbitrarily complex. I tried to make both of those points in the essay, though probably not that well.
The point in this essay is that The Standard View is not useful for explaining how our brains perform high level cognition, even if high level cognition is consistent with The Standard View.