If a tree casts a shadow is it telling the time?

Abstract

Physical processes are computations only when we use them to externalize thought. Computation is the performance of one or more fixed processes within a contingent environment. We reformulate the Church-Turing thesis so that it applies to programs rather than to computability. When suitably formulated agent-based computing in an open, multi-scalar environment represents the current consensus view of how we interact with the world. But we don't know how to formulate multi-scalar environments.