kpreid comments on Without models - Less Wrong

14 Post author: RichardKennaway 04 May 2009 11:31AM

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Comment author: kpreid 05 May 2009 12:00:30PM *  2 points [-]

The substitution is not equivalent; people are more likely to agree whether something contains "random access memory" than whether it contains "a model".

Comment author: cousin_it 05 May 2009 11:34:59PM *  1 point [-]

I think philosophers could easily blur the definition of "random access memory", they just didn't get around to it yet. A competent engineer can peek inside a device and tell you whether it's running a model of its surroundings, so the word "model" does carry some meaning regardless of what philosophers say. If you want a formal definition, we could start with something like this: does the device contain independent correlata for independent external concepts of interest?