David Nyman wrote: > Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > > > I think I see what you mean, but it's as much a problem for the intact and > > normally functioning brain as it is for teleportation experiments, isn't it? > > Yes, that's my point! I'm trying to argue that the brain has actually > come up with a solution to this in order to account for what we > experience.
If it is in the nature of physics to spread over regions of non-zero duration, the brain doesn't *have* to solve any problems relating to zero-dimensional slices. > > For that > > matter, it's as much a problem for a computer that gets teleported around > > in the > > course of its calculations. If the teleportation time slices are of > > femtosecond > > duration, then there is nothing within a particular slice to mark it as > > part of the > > calculation 5464*2342. Yet a computer strobing in and out of existence like > > this, > > technical problems aside, will still come up with the right answer. Indeed, > > if the > > computer only materialised in the final femtosecond it would have the right > > answer > > and if a log were kept, evidence of how it arrived at the answer. Do you > > believe > > that there must be some super-computation information in each femtosecond > > slice > > that binds them all together? > > No, this is irrelevant. The calculation example is disanalogous, > because what is relevant to this is simply the 3-person process that > results in the right answer: this *entirely constitutes* the > calculation. We don't seek to make claims about any putative > 'temporally-extended pov' that the computer might possess while > performing it. What is at issue in these thought experiments, by > contrast, is *precisely* the pov - of apparently real temporal > dimension and dynamic character - that we wish to claim would be > experienced from the perspective of a given 'time-slice', however > arbitrarily fine-grained. Why do we wish to claim that? > With respect to this pov, we seem to have two alternatives: > > 1) It is supported and constrained *entirely* by whatever structure and > information is to be found within an individual time-slice (i.e. the > 'time capsule'). > > 2) Structure and information external to the individual time-slice is > in fact required to generate it (i.e. the individual slice is not a > 'time capsule'). > > Per alternative 1), any slice containing the requisite structure and > information content can potentially support a coherent 'temporally > extended' conscious experience. Per alternative 2) AFAICS this can't be > the case. > > I'm not sure that you're seeing my point here. I'm not denying that the > pov is maintained in the chopped-up version, I'm supporting this view. > But given the information constraint, I'm saying that any mechanisms > that produce conscious experiences of apparent temporal duration *must* > consequently (and counter-intuitively) depend on *instantaneously* > present structure and information. These non-sequential issues are not > relevant for 'calculation', hence the disanalogy. This leads to an > empirical claim about brain mechanism, driven by the analysis. If we > don't concede this, then AFAICS we're left with the alternative of > giving up the information constraint. That is, the apparent temporal > extension available in experience *from the pov of an individual > infinitessimal time-slice* must somehow depend on information to be > found only in other time-slices. But this then renders any notion of > slicing irrelevant and the thought experiment collapses. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ 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 -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
