Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > > Bruno Marchal writes: > > >>Le 24-août-06, à 13:53, Stathis Papaioannou a écrit : >> >> >>>>I would say the multiple branches are needed to have any *stable* >>>>conscious experience, i.e. to have conscious experience "with the >>>>right >>>>(relative) probabilities" >>> >>>It may as a matter of fact be the case that our consciousness is >>>spread across >>>multiple branches, but I don't see how this would confer stability. >>>When people >>>pray for something, they are actually asking God to prune the >>>multiverse branches >>>in which undesirable outcomes occur. If God complies, in the extreme >>>case leaving >>>only a single branch intact, their future conscious experience will be >>>very stable >>>indeed. >> >> >>OK. You also ask this to Russell: >> >> >>>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? >> >> >>I think we would. Suppose you put coffee in a cup. One second after you >>drink it. >>Now, both with the comp hyp., or with just the quantum hypothesis, you >>know there are quantum or comp continuations in which the coffee will >>be transformed into tea (or white rabbits ...). Suppose God prunes all >>the branches where the coffee does not change, then, during that >>second, the probability of drinking coffee, relatively to tour >>experience of having put coffee in the cup, will be zero. I guess you >>will noticed the difference. >>Recall the seventh step of the UDA (in the SANE version of UDA with 8 >>steps). You drop a pen, and you evaluate the probability that the pen >>hits the ground (if that is english). By the comp first person >>indetermincacy, the comp-exact first plural calculus, in principle, >>consists in considering *all* computations in UD* (i.e. generated by >>the UD in Platonia where we are supposed to be infinitely patient) >>going through your "actual state" (i.e. the one when you will just >>bring the cup to your mouth), and to see what is going on (from some >>third person pov) in each of the consistent computational >>continuations. If some "comp Goddess" was able to prune, the way she >>wants, the computation or their continuations she could change >>arbitrarily your local physical laws, and unless she decides to revised >>your memory (and thus your actual states) you would notice. > > > You would if it were the non-miraculous branches that were selectively > pruned, although I guess that it is just this sort of pruning people would > be asking of God (you would hardly need to pray that your coffee remain > coffee). Nevertheless, even if the content of your conscious experience > changed, there is no reason why you should not remain conscious as long > as there was one single branch left in which you were conscious. To put it > differently, there is no way you can tell that some single world / collapsing > wave function interpretation of QM is correct, if you exclude quantum > interference effects (and even that does not convince everyone, as we > know). > > >>About your question "could a recording be conscious?" Well, let me >>quote you: >> >> >> >>>But WHY can't a recording be conscious? How do I know I'm not in >>>a recording at the moment? True, I am surprised by my experiences >>>and believe I could have acted differently had I wanted to, but that >>>might all be part of the script to which I am not privy, so that things >>>could only have been different if the recording had been different. >> >> >>I think I mainly agree with you, but I have some reason to discard >>expression like "a recording can be conscious". If it is a recording of >>a (genuine) *computation* (unlike just a program), you can *associate* >>consciousness to .... not really to the recording, but to the "person" >>having that piece of computation recorded. That is, I think only >>"person" can think. I don't believe a brain can think, nor any piece of >>local "comp-matter". Only persons think, and only first persons are >>aware of thinking. >>Giving your other posts, I think this could just be a terminological >>nuance, but it helps to separate persons and their many relative third >>person (or first plural) incarnations/implementations. > > > What I meant was, if a computer program can be associated with > consciousness, then a rigid and deterministic computer program can also > be associated with consciousness - leaving aside the question of how > exactly the association occurs. For example, suppose I have a conversation > with a putatively conscious computer program as part of a Turing test, and > the program passes, convincing me and everyone else that it has been > conscious during the test. Then, I start up the program again with no memory > saved from the first run, but this time I play it a recording of my voice > from > the first test. The program will go through exactly the same resposes as > during the first run, but this time to an external observer who saw the first > run the program's responses will be no more surprising that my questions > on the recording of my voice. The program itself won't know what's coming > and it might even think it is being clever by throwing is some > "unpredictable" > answers to prove how free and human-like it really is. I don't think there is > any > basis for saying it is conscious during the first run but not during the > second. I > also don't think it helps to say that its responses *would* have been > different > even on the second run had its input been different, because that is true of > any record player or automaton.
I think it does help; or at least it makes a difference. I think you illegitmately move the boundary between the thing supposed to be conscious (I'd prefer "intelligent", because I think intelligence requires counterfactuals, but I'm not sure about consciousness) and its environment in drawing that conclusion. The question is whether the *recording* is conscious. It has no input. But then you say it has counterfactuals because the output of a *record player* would be different with a different input. One might well say that a record player has intelligence - of a very low level. But a record does not. Brent Meeker --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ 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 -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
