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Article 4856 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: bill@NSMA.AriZonA.EdU (Bill Skaggs)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: lookup tables again
Message-ID: <1992Apr1.011348.11035@organpipe.uug.arizona.edu>
Date: 1 Apr 92 01:13:48 GMT
References: <1992Mar31.145015.12085@oracorp.com> <1992Mar31.205855.13140@u.washington.edu>
Sender: news@organpipe.uug.arizona.edu
Reply-To: bill@NSMA.AriZonA.EdU (Bill Skaggs)
Organization: Center for Neural Systems, Memory, and Aging
Lines: 23

In article <1992Mar31.145015.12085@oracorp.com> 
daryl@oracorp.com (Daryl McCullough) writes:
>I thought that the lookup table was the prime sort of thing that
>functionalism was supposed to rule out! If functionalism can't rule
>out humongous lookup tables, then what *does* it rule out? 

  Suppose we imagine that the universe has a finite number of
possible states, and that time is quantized.  (If quantum
mechanics is correct and the universe is finite, both of
these are true.)  Then the universe is in effect an FSA
without inputs.  Whatever the rule is that determines the
succession of states of the universe (i.e. whatever the laws
of physics happen to be), imagine replacing the rule with
a humongous lookup table.

  If the universe evolved by looking up its states in the
table, rather than by whatever process actually determines its
dynamics, the sequence of states would be exactly the same.

  Would this replacement suddenly obliterate consciousness
and meaning from the universe?  

	-- Bill


