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DanArmak comments on Getting Over Dust Theory - Less Wrong
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That's not data. That's a definition.
I'm not convinced. For instance, I can point to plenty of examples of logic inverters that respond to causally to changes in their input logic states by making the inverse changes in their outputs. How does one slice and dice the states of the physical world to label some disconnected set of them as a "dust" inverter? In other words, if one explicitly enlarges the definition of a computing system to include "dust" systems, can one point to a correspondingly enlarged set of data on working examples?
I don't know, but it's not relevant. The fact that you can't usefully define "mind" or "computing system" to include dust, doesn't tell us anything about the ordinary definition of "mind" that does not include dust.
Your response is irrelevant to the central topic of this discussion. The entire point of the whole discussion is whether it makes sense to include dust in the class of places we consider as possible computing systems or not.
What I'm saying is this. You're faced with various ways in which dust-based systems differ from ordinary ones (e.g., you can't interact with them). Then you have two options: either say dust-based systems don't perform computation; or say computation doesn't require interaction. The difference between the two is solely in the definition of "computation".
Discussing the appropriate definition of "computation" is a worthwhile discussion to have. But you have to be aware that you won't get any more information out of this deliberation than you put into it.