Bruno marchal writes: > Le 26-août-06, à 16:35, 1Z a écrit : > > > > >> And since the computer may be built and programmed in an arbitrarily > >> complex way, because any physical > >> system can be mapped onto any computation with the appropriate > >> mapping rules, > > > > That is not a fact. > > > It would make sense, indeed, only if the map is computable, and in this > case I agree it has not been proved. Again UDA makes such question non > relevant, given that the physical is secondary with respect to the > intelligible.
Any computation that can be implemented on a physical system A can be mapped onto another physical system B, even if B has fewer distinct states than A, since states can be "reused" for parallel processing. If B is some boring sysstem such as the ticking of a clock then the "work" (not sure what the best word to use here is) of implementing the computation lies in the mapping rules, not in the physical activity. The mapping rules are not actually "implemented": they can exist written on a piece of paper so that an external observer can refer to them and see what the computer is up to, or potentially interact with it. And if the computer is conscious because someone can potentially talk to it using the piece of paper, ther is no reason why it should not also be conscious when the piece of paper is destroyed, or everyone who understands the code on the piece of paper dies. In the limiting case, the platonic existence of the mapping rule contains all of the computation and the physical activity is irrelevant - arriving at the same position you do. Stathis Papaioannou _________________________________________________________________ Be one of the first to try Windows Live Mail. http://ideas.live.com/programpage.aspx?versionId=5d21c51a-b161-4314-9b0e-4911fb2b2e6d --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ 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 -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
