Le 03-sept.-06, à 05:07, Stathis Papaioannou a écrit :
> The dynamism part can be provided by a simple physical system such as > the idle passage of time. > If you allow for parallel processing you don't need much time either. > This leads to a situation whereby > every computation is implemented by universe with a single electron > enduring for a nanosecond, for > example. I can't quite see how to get rid of the electron, but > Maudlin's and Bruno's conclusion from > this seems to be that it is absurd and implies that the mental does > not actually supervene on the physical. I think you mix the Mallah Putnam implementation problem, related to the idea that any piece of matter could compute, and Maudlin's thought experiment showing the incompatibility of the physical supervenience thesis (that consciousness should supervene on the physical activity of a computer running the computation) and computationalism (that consciousness is invariant for a digital functional substitution made at some level). Maudlin build first a digital machine, let us call it M, which do a computation PI (Maudlin's name for it) which we suppose does correspond to a genuine consciousness experience (for example some remembering of the taste of cocoa). Suppose that during the running of that particular computation PI, the register r1, ...r67 are never used. Maudlin argue that if consciousness is attached to the physical activity relevant for the computation, we can retrieve those unused part of the computer, without changing the consciousness experience. He shows then that he can managed to build a version of M, proto-olympia (say) which has almost no physical activity at all when he follows the PI computation. Proto-olympia is *physically* accidentally correct for PI, but no more counterfactually correct. Then Maudlin reintroduces the unused parts, the Klaras, which reintroduces the counterfactual correctness, WITHOUT ADDING any comp relevant physical activity (if not, it would mean the level is incorrect(*)). So comp + physical supervenience (phys-sup) would force us to associate any consciousness experience to any physical processes. And that would kill comp! So sup-phys -> NOT comp, or equivalently comp -> NOT sup-phys. We still have notions of computational supervenience, where persons and consciousness are associated to relative number theoretical relations. Bruno (*) This explains also why, AT THIS STAGE, to move on a physical multiverse would not help (Russell's Standish move), unless it makes US non computable, but that would be equivalent to abandoning both comp and the quantum (given that quantum mechanics is quantum turing emulable). http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ 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 -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
