Bruno Marchal wrote: > Le 24-mars-06, à 16:31, 1Z a écrit : > > > > > > > Bruno Marchal wrote: > >> Le 20-mars-06, à 00:04, John M a écrit : > >> > >> > >>> A Turing machine does nothing (by itself). Don't take > >>> the power for granted. Something has to OPERATE it to > >>> do anything. > >> > >> > >> Why? How could a digital machine distinguish reality, virtual > >> reality, > >> arithmetical reality, etc. > > > > The question is about what computers are , form a 3rd-person > > perspective, > > not about what a machine would see from its own 1st person perspective. > > We know we have a 1st person perspecitve, and we have 3rd person > > knowledge > > of computers. That is the perspective of John's question. You question > > is > > from a machine's 1st person perspective. We don't even know that > > digitial computers have a 1st-person perspective. > > > It is our assumption. "I" am conscious and "I" am turing emulable. So > some machine "can think".
That doesn't follow. An emulation of you must have some kind of functional equaivalence or isomomrphism, but that leaves it as a map, not as a territory. You can no more guarantee that your functional equivalent is conscious (not a Zombie) than you can guarantee that you can gor potatoes in the map of a farm. > >>> Bruno: > >>> let me draw your attention to one little phrasing in > >>> Hal's (and everybody else's, I presume, as I read > >>> these posts)- text: > >>> "If we assume..." > >>> And if we do not? > >> > >> > >> You will miss the consequences of the assumption. All science is based > >> on implicit or explicit assumption, related to (non definable) > >> world-views. > > > > Almost all science is based on the implicit assumption of a "stuffy" > > world view. > > > > No. This is a simplifying methodological assumption, but there is no > evidence it is necessary. Few physicists use it. I can assure you that real-life physicsists do use it. If you get your information about physics from new-age books, that is another matter. > Except the week-end > when they doesn't want to be copnfronted with tricky foundational > problems. True, the idea that there is a stuffy universe, and that > "real" = what we measure, is in vogue since Aristotle, but it is > incompatible with comp (this has been proved, I am not speculating. I > can prove it to you if you are interested). > So much for comp. I wasn't very convinced by it anyway. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
