Yes, we do agree more than not. As someone said, however, the devil is in
the details. But those details of how we might view this may not represent
any fundamental difference in viewpoint.
analogy because Rosen discusses it too).
1. "All this can only mean one thing. In some key way, our rock
understands. At the pure physics and data
levels, we can say that the rock has understanding."
I agree with this - that the "understanding" is purely at the sub-atomic
level, but that this communicates with the structure or "data" at the
macroscopic level.
2. ".... the notion that data [are] non physical." I do not believe that
data are non-physical, because the concept refers to time/space attributes.
Something analogous to data may be non-physical. I prefer to use the less
defined word "information." But this is semantics, really.
3. ".....This data will cause it [the rock] to react in certain ways to all
the data it takes in. I see these two processes occuring on different
levels. This may be a bit semantic too, but necessarily so. The word "rock"
refers to the macroscopic object, which is simple (previous posts between
myself and Don) - a purely simple formalism that resulted from complex
interactions at the particle level. Living organisms, on the other hand,
retain complexity at a macroscopic level. "Data" are macroscopic physical
records (perhaps the entire macroscopic physical world), but interpreting
data requires a complex system. Hence I conclude that organisms can process
environmental data because they have macroscopic complexity that allows
them to interpret the data, whereas a rock can only interpret data
(macroscopic structure) that defines particle state domains.
4. "... It can't use its free will to move by itself because it has no free
will." Again, we agree more than disagree that life involves macroscopic
free will, while a rock doesn't have this. Yet, to be consistent with the
above, I would say the rock has a form of disorganized (apparently random)
sub-atomic free will, and so that is the level of its interaction and
understanding. On an intelligence scale, it would, along with other
physical objects, define the lowest possible score, with single partical
events being somewhat higher.
-----------------------------------------------
John J. Kineman, Physical Scientist/Ecologist
National Geophysical Data Center
325 Broadway E/GC1 (3100 Marine St. Rm: A-152)
Boulder, Colorado 80303 USA
(303) 497-6900 (phone)
(303) 497-6513 (fax)
jjk@ngdc.noaa.gov (email)