Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
> Russell Standish writes: > > > Its a fair point, given that we can't exactly define consciousness, > > but doesn't it seem a tad unlikely to you? > > > > The point is that in a Multiverse our own consciousnesses are not > > equivalent to recordings is suggestive, but not conclusive, that > > recordings aren't conscious. > > Is there any reason to believe that we would lose consciousness, or notice > that anything strange had happened at all, if most or all of the parallel > branches > in the multiverse suddenly vanished? Yes. If all the following are true: 1) we, as conscious beings, are computations 2) computations require counterfactuals. 3) Multiple branches implement countefactuals. > > The Maudlin/movie-graph argument relies upon the equivalence *in fact* > > of recordings and computations in a single universe. Hence the focus > > on *counter fact*. > > These arguments seem to take it as axiomatic that consciousness requires the > handling of counterfactuals. Perhaps the origin of this idea is the reasonable > observation that intelligent entities worthy of the name must be able to > adjust > to changes in the environment. The origin is computationalism. You could abadon it, but you would need to find another route to Platonism. > However, the effect of intelligent beings who > interact in surprising ways with their environment could be created by a > sufficiently > complex computer program or model universe, like a cellular automaton, with > fixed > rules + initial conditions, playing out the same way however many times it > was run. Fixed rules+initial conditions can be reduced to fixed output, which is no-one's idea of computation.. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
