On 19 Nov 2008, at 23:26, Jason Resch wrote: > > > On Wed, Nov 19, 2008 at 1:55 PM, Bruno Marchal <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > wrote: > > On 19 Nov 2008, at 20:17, Jason Resch wrote: > >> To add some clarification, I do not think spreading Alice's logic >> gates across a field and allowing cosmic rays to cause each gate to >> perform the same computations that they would had they existed in >> her functioning brain would be conscious. I think this because in >> isolation the logic gates are not computing anything complex, only >> AND, OR, NAND operations, etc. This is why I believe rocks are not >> conscious, the collisions of their molecules may be performing >> simple computations, but they are never aggregated into complex >> patterns to compute over a large set of information. > > > Actually I agree with this argument. But it does not concern Alice, > because I have provide her with an incredible amount of luck. The > lucky rays fix the neurons in a genuine way (by that abnormally big > amount of pure luck). > > If the cosmic rays are simply keeping her neurons working normally, > then I'm more inclined to believe she remains conscious, but I'm not > certain one way or the other.
I have no certainty either. But this I feel related with my instinctive rather big uncertainty about the assumptions MECH and MAT. Now if both MECH and MAT are, naively enough perhaps, assumed to be completely true, I think I have no reason for not attributing to Alice consciousness. If not MECH break down, because I have to endow neurons with some prescience. The physical activity is the same, as far as they serve to instanciate a computation (cf the "qua computatio"). > > > If you doubt Alice remain conscious, how could you accept an > experience of simple teleportation (UDA step 1 or 2). If you can > recover consciousness from a relative digital description, how could > that consciousness distinguish between a recovery from a genuine > description send from earth (say), and a recovery from a description > luckily generated by a random process? > > I believe consciousness can be recovered from a digital description, > but I don't believe the description itself is conscious while being > beamed from one teleporting station to the other. I think it is > only when the body/computer simulation is instantiated can > consciousness recovered from the description. I agree. No one said that the description was conscious. Only that consciousness is related to a physical instantiation of a computation, which unluckily break down all the time, but were fixed, at genuine places and moments., by an incredibly big (but finite) amount luck, (assuming consciously MECH+MAT) > > Consider sending the description over an encrypted channel, without > the right decryption algorithm and key the description can't be > differentiated from random noise. The same bits could be > interpreted entirely differently depending completely on how the > recipient uses it. The "meaning" of the transmission is recovered > when it forms a system with complex relations, presumably the same > relations as the original one that was teleported, even though it > may be running on a different physical substrate, or a different > computer architecture. No problem. I agree. > > I don't deny that a random process could be the source of a > transmission that resulted in the creation of a conscious being, > what I deny is that random *simple computations, lacking any causal > linkages, could form consciousness. The way the lucky rays fixed Alice neurons illustrates that they were not random at all. That is why Alice is so lucky! > > * By simple I mean the types of computation done in discrete steps, > such as multiplication, addition, etc. Those done by a single > neuron or a small collection of logic gates. > > If you recover from a description (comp), you cannot know if that > description has been generated by a computation or a random process, > unless you give some prescience to the logical gates. Keep in mind > we try to refute the conjunction MECH and MAT. > > Here I would say that consciousness is not correlated with the > physical description at any point in time, but rather the > computational history and flow of information, and that this is > responsible for the subjective experience of being Alice. If > Alice's mind is described by a random process, albeit one which > gives the appearance of consciousness during her exam, she > nevertheless has no coherent computational history and her mind > contains no large scale informational structures. If it was random, sure. But it was not. More will be said through MGA 2. > The state machine that would represent her in the case of injection > of random noise is a different state machine that would represent > her normally functioning brain. Absolutely so. Bruno 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?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
