From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.ecf!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!think.com!spool.mu.edu!umn.edu!news.cs.indiana.edu!bronze!chalmers Tue Mar 24 09:57:51 EST 1992
Article 4646 of comp.ai.philosophy:
Path: newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.ecf!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!think.com!spool.mu.edu!umn.edu!news.cs.indiana.edu!bronze!chalmers
>From: chalmers@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu (David Chalmers)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: A rock implements every FSA
Keywords: Putnam, implementation
Message-ID: <1992Mar21.212311.6846@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu>
Date: 21 Mar 92 21:23:11 GMT
Article-I.D.: bronze.1992Mar21.212311.6846
References: <44855@dime.cs.umass.edu> <1992Mar21.164356.13660@uwm.edu>
Organization: Indiana University
Lines: 19

In article <1992Mar21.164356.13660@uwm.edu> markh@csd4.csd.uwm.edu (Mark William Hopkins) writes:

>So because of this finiteness, there MUST be FSA's so large that they cannot
>be represented even by the whole universe -- except by a method of coding
>that itself is too big to fit in the universe.

This is not really a complaint about Putnam's physics, but about his
definition of realization.  Putnam needn't assume an infinite number
of physical states for his argument.  He would say that a finite system
that evolves through just 10000 states, say, in a given time-interval, is
realizing a zillion-state FSA during that time-interval.  Of course
this seems silly, but that is precisely because of his very weak
criterion of realization, i.e. that a realization need only implement
a "trace" of the FSA.

-- 
Dave Chalmers                            (dave@cogsci.indiana.edu)      
Center for Research on Concepts and Cognition, Indiana University.
"It is not the least charm of a theory that it is refutable."


