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Peterdjones comments on Three consistent positions for computationalists - Less Wrong
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One can only detect, as opposed to invent, what is already there. Being a NAND gate is not a physical property that is already there, nonetheless not everything is a NAND gate. There are constraints on what substrate can do what, but they are not fully determinate facts, for all that they are not imaginary.
Actually, "NAND Gate" is a term that we use to label something that is there --a tag we assign to patterns in the physical world that follow similar patterns of behavior to a representation we hold in our minds.
This is a bit like trees falling in the forest. If there is nobody there to label it a NAND gate, then it will still do the exact same thing... but there's no "NAND gate" there.
And, when the person does show up and label it, there's still no "NAND gate" there... there's just a label in that person's mind, saying, "that thing there is a NAND gate".
Not understanding this basic concept (that reality does not contain any labels, and has no "is-ness") leads to all sorts of confusion.
(Sadly, this kind of confusion is also the natural human state.)
If it's doing what a NAND gate does, it's a NAND gate. Reality does not come pre-labelled,but things also do not spring into existence just because someone has labelled them.
Only if you think that "X is Y" means something other than, "My brain has associated the label Y with the cluster of sensory experiences denoted by X".
I do: I think it means "X is a mind-independent object that would and should be labelled Y by an onlooker speaking my language". I believe there are stars and planets no one has ever seen, or had a chance to label as such, Don't you?
I think you've missed the part where that is still a label in your mind, being attached to a cluster of sensory experiences.
In such cases, the sensory experience clusters you're labeling are memories associated with the labels "star" and "planet".
However, this has little to do with an X-is-Y identity. In order to say "X is Y", there has to be an X and a Y, and you are speaking only here of the hypothesized existence of various X's that you would then label Y.
In any event, this and this are relevant here, in case you've missed them.