Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
Brent Meeker writes:
>> > I make the claim that a rock can be conscious assuming that >>
computationalism > is true; it may not be true, in which case neither
>> a rock nor a computer may be > conscious. There is no natural
syntax >> or semantics for a computer telling us > what should count
as a "1" or >> a "0", what should count as a red perception, and > so
on. These >> things are determined by how the computer is designed to
interact > >> with its environment, whether that mean outputting the
sum of two >> numbers to > a screen or interacting with a human to
convince him that >> it is conscious. But what > if the environment is
made part of the >> computer? The constraint on meaning and > syntax
would then go, and >> the vibration of atoms in a rock could be
implementing > any >> computation, including any conscious
computation, if such there are.
>> > > John Searle, among others, believes this is absurd, and that >>
therefore it disproves > computationalism. Another approach is that it
>> shows that it is absurd that consciousness > supervenes on physical
>> activity of any sort, but we can keep computationalism and > drop
the >> physical supervenience criterion, as Bruno has.
>> > > Stathis Papaioannou
>>
>> I have a view that seems to me to be slightly different. >>
Consciousness requires interaction with an environment; consciousness
>> implicitly requires a distinction between "I" and "the world". So
>> when you attribute consciousness to a rock, incorporating "the
world" >> as part of the rock, while the remainder of the rock is
"conscious" >> that raises problems. We can say that this part of the
rock is >> conscious of that part; making some arbitrary division of
the rock. >> But then it's not conscious in/of our universe. > >
That's right: if it's conscious, then it's conscious in its own
isolated > virtual universe. It's another means to a many worlds theory.
> >> When you say there is no canonical syntax, which is what allows
>> anything to be a computation of anything else, I think that is >>
overstates the case. Suppose a particular pair of iron atoms in the
>> rock are magnetically aligned and the syntax counts that as "0"
while >> anti-aligned counts as "1". Then what computation is
implemented by >> "0000000..."? The arbitrariness of syntax
supposedly allows this to >> be translated into "27" or some other
number. But then the >> translation has to have all possible words in
it and the relational >> meanings of those words; including the words
for all the numbers in >> that world. This places a pretty strong
restriction on the size of >> the rock-world - there are only some
10^25 atoms to do all this >> representing.
> > The rock can make numbers and universes as big as you want through
the > method of parallel computing. Suppose the rock had only a few
distinct > physical states. If we place no restriction on what these
states can > represent, then they can represent multiple binary
strings or finite > numbers or sentences or whatever - all in
parallel. Any serial > computation can be made up of multiple parallel
computations,
I find that doubtful - do you have a reference? Isn't it the
definition of "incompressible" computation that there is no way faster
than executing each step in sequence.
I'm not referring to speed, just to doing it. For example, a serial
stream of consciousness can be emulated by multiple shorter parallel
streams; there is no way of knowing whether you're being run in serial,
parallel, how fast the real world clock is running, etc.
I wasn't referring to speed either, but rather to needing to calculate states
1...n, before knowing how to calculate n+1... Are you thinking the computation
is like a recording so you can play n+1... and then 1...n?
>and vice > versa. You can't say, aha, we've used that string for
"dog" so we can't > now use it for "cat", because who is going to
patrol the universe to > enforce this rule? This is what you are left
with if you eliminate the > constraint that the computation has to
interact with an external observer.
I think my objection is different. You are assuming there is a "we"
too whom these strings represent something, but in the closed
rock-world there is no "we". The representation must be this
conscious-part of the rock representing that other-part of the rock.
But how can one part represent the other - by having a dictionary that
translates states of one into the other. But how is the dictionary
encoded? It seems there's an infinite regress.
How is this infinite regress avoided in our world? By consciousness
not representing the rest of the world. The world is what it is and
representation is not essential. I suppose this is somewhat like
Peter's "primitive substance" whose only function is to distinguish
things that exist from their representation.
Then there must be a way to distinguish true reality from virtual
reality. This is something like Colin Hale's idea that the environment
participates in the brain process that produces consciousness (which he
aims to prove by experiment, a staggering achievent if he succeeds), so
that an isolated virtual reality is impossible.
Of course, in the evolution of brains and in the design of digital
computers, the semantics is provided by the real world; similarly in
human language, the semantics is provided by the language speakers.
Without the provision of a semantic context it's gibberish. But there is
a special quality that consciousness has which other systems lack: it is
conscious in and of itself. Take the following steps:
1. A conscious computer is built to interact with its environment, say
digging holes.
2. A co-processor is added (which need itself not be conscious) to
provide the computer with a virtual environment in which to dig the
holes, so that all the input that came from the real environment comes
from this co-processor and all the motor output from the computer goes
to the coprocessor.
3. The computer and coprocessor are connected together and sealed in a
capsule with power input from a solar panel.
4. Everybody dies and there is no record left which will give a clue as
to what the original computer was meant to do or how it was designed.
I claim than at step 4 it is impossible to know that the computer was
designed to dig holes, but that it will still be digging holes in its
own mind (maybe the same holes after a while) until it breaks down. Do
you think it stops being conscious at one of the steps 2 to 4?
Stathis Papaioannou
I don't know. But I think I can sharpen the problem a little. In your example we know the computer is conscious in the beginning. How can we know this?...By its behavior. But then, when it's encapsulated with a simulated environment, it has no external, discernible behavior. So after everyone that knew the code dies, it's impossible to know that the computer is conscious of digging a hole. But is it?
I guess I'm not convinced that there's no way to discern from the outside that
it is a simulation of something. This connects the problem to the question of
whether any process (including a null one) executes any arbitrary computation.
Obviously if the encapsulated system is executing the null process and that
also counts as an execution of the simulated-hole-digging+consciousness, it
will be impossible to discern that it is a conscious system. But we do have
theories of information and entropy that should be applicable to any
computation and would tell us whether anything is being computed. For example
if we look at the vibrational states of the atoms in a rock we see that they
are distributed according to a maximum entropy principle and hence there is no
significant information flow from one part of the rock to another.
In the thought experiment you propose, we would observe information flow
between parts of the system and an accumulation of memory in the conscious
part. Whether we could discern what was being simulated is an open question.
It seems very hard, but I don't see how to prove it is impossible. It seems to
me that it is hard on the same order as discovering/inventing the laws of
nature.
Brent Meeker
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