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.
It is far from impossible. If it keeps returning to the same state, it is in a loop, for instance. I am sure that you are tiching to point out that loops can be made to appear or vanish by re-interpretation. My point is that it is RE interpretation. There is a baseline set by what is true of a system under minimal interpretation. The idea is that the > same computation can look completely different on different computers, Not *completely* different. There will be a mapping, and it will be a lot simpler than one of your fanciful ones. > the corollary > of which is that any computer (or physical process) may be implementing any > computation, we just might not know about it. That doesn't follow. The computational structure that a physical systems is "really" implementing is the computational structure that can be reverse-engineered under a minimally complex interpretation. You *can* introduce more complex mappings, but you don't *have* to. It is an artificial problem. > 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 > _________________________________________________________________ > 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 -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
