Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > Peter Jones writes (quoting SP): > > >>>>>I'm not sure how the multiverse comes into the discussion, but you have >>>>>made the point several times that a computation depends on an observer >>>> >>>> >>>>No, I haven't! I have tried ot follow through the consequences of >>>>assuming it must. >>>>It seems to me that some sort of absurdity or contradiction ensues. >>> >>>OK. This has been a long and complicated thread. >>> >>> >>>>>for its meaning. I agree, but *if* computations can be conscious (remember, >>>>>this is an assumption) then in that special case an external observer is >>>>>not >>>>>needed. >>>> >>>>Why not ? (Well, I would be quite happy that a conscious >>>>computation would have some inherent structural property -- >>>>I want to foind out why *you* would think it doesn't). >>> >>>I think it goes against standard computationalism if you say that a conscious >>>computation has some inherent structural property. > > > I should have said, that the *hardware* has some special structural property > goes > against computationalism. It is difficult to pin down the "structure" of a > computation > without reference to a programming language or hardware. The idea is that the > same computation can look completely different on different computers, the > corollary > of which is that any computer (or physical process) may be implementing any > computation, we just might not know about it. It is legitimate to say that > only > particular computers (eg. brains, or PC's) using particular languages arev > actually > implementing conscious computations, but that is not standard > computationalism. > > Statthis Papaioannou
I thought standard computationalism was just the modest position that if the hardware of your brain were replaced piecemeal by units with the same input-output at some microscopic level usually assumed to be neurons, you'd still be you and you'd still be conscious. I don't recall anything about all computations implementing consciousness? 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 -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
