There's a quote you might like, by Korzybski: "That which makes no difference _is_ no difference."
-------------------------- - Did you ever hear of "The Seattle Seven"? - Mmm. - That was me... and six other guys. 2008/11/26 Bruno Marchal <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > MGA 3 > > It is the last MGA ! > > I realize MGA is complete, as I thought it was, but I was doubting this > recently. We don't need to refer to Maudlin, and MGA 4 is not necessary. > Maudlin 1989 is an independent argument of the 1988 Toulouse argument > (which I present here). Note that Maudlin's very interesting "Olympization > technic" can be used to defeat a wrong form of MGA 3, that is, a wrong > argument for the assertion that the movie cannot be conscious. (the > argument that the movie lacks the counterfactual). Below are hopefully > correct (if not very simple) argument. ( I use Maudlin sometimes when people > gives this non correct form of MGA 3, and this is probably what makes me > think Maudlin has to be used, at some point). > > > > MGA 1 shows that Lucky Alice is conscious, and MGA 2 shows that the > "luckiness" feature of the MGA 1 experiment was a red herring. We can > construct, from MEC+COMP, an home made lucky rays generator, and use it at > will. If we accept both digital mechanism, in particular Dennet's principle > that neurons have no intelligence, still less prescience, and this > *together with* the supervenience principle; we have to accept that Alice > conscious dream experience supervenes on the projection of her brain > activity movie. > > Let us show now that Alice consciousness *cannot* supervene on that > *physical* movie projection. > > > > I propose two (deductive) arguments. > > 1) > > Mechanism implies the following tautological functionalist principle: if, > for some range of activity, a system does what it is supposed to do, and > this before and after a change is made in its constitution, then the change > does not change what the system is supposed to do, for that range of > activity. > Example: > - A car is supposed to broken but only if the driver is faster than 90 > miles/h. Pepe Pepito NEVER drives faster than 80 miles/h. Then the car is > supposed to do what she is supposed to do, with respect of its range of > activity defined by Pepe Pepito. > - Claude bought a 1000 thousand processors computer. One day he realized > that he used only 990 processors, for his type of activity, so he decided to > get rid of those 10 useless processors. And indeed the machine will satisfy > Claude ever. > > - Alice has (again) a math exam. Theoreticians have correctly predict that > in this special circumstance, she will never use neurons X, Y and Z. Now > Alice go (again, again) to this exam in the same condition, but with the > neurons X, Y, Z removed. Again, not only will she behaved like if she > succeed her exam, but her consciousness, with both MEC *and* MAT still > continue. > The idea is that if something is not useful, for an active process to go > on, for some range of activity, then you can remove it, for that range of > activity. > > OK? > > Now, consider the projection of the movie of the activity of Alice's brain, > "the movie graph". > Is it necessary that someone look at that movie? Certainly not. No more > than it is needed that someone is look at your reconstitution in Moscow for > you to be conscious in Moscow after a teleportation. All right? (with MEC > assumed of course). > Is it necessary to have a screen? Well, the range of activity here is just > one dynamical description of one computation. Suppose we make a hole in the > screen. What goes in and out of that hole is exactly the same, with the hole > and without the hole. For that unique activity, the hole in the screen is > functionally equivalent to the subgraph which the hole removed. Clearly we > can make a hole as large as the screen, so no need for a screen. > But this reasoning goes through if we make the hole in the film itself. > Reconsider the image on the screen: with a hole in the film itself, you get > a "hole" in the movie, but everything which enters and go out of the hole > remains the same, for that (unique) range of activity. The "hole" has > trivially the same functionality than the subgraph functionality whose > special behavior was described by the film. And this is true for any > subparts, so we can remove the entire film itself. > > Does Alice's dream supervene (in real time and space) on the projection of > the empty movie? > > Remark. > 1° Of course, this argument can be sum up by saying that the movie lacks > causality between its parts so that it cannot really be said that it > computes any thing, at least physically. The movie is just an ordered record > of computational states. This is neither a physical computation, nor an > (immaterial) computation where the steps follows relatively to some > universal machine. It is just a description of a computation, already > existing in the Universal Deployment. > 2° Note this: If we take into consideration the relative destiny of Alice, > and supposing one day her brain broke down completely, she has more chance > to survive through "holes in the screen" than to the "holes in the film". > The film contains the relevant information to reconstitute Alice from her > brain description, contained on this high resolution film. Keeping comp, and > abandoning the physical supervenience thesis, means that we do no more > associate consciousness, neither on the movie, NOR on the brain special > activity in a computation, but to the computation itself directly. A brain, > and even a film, will "only" be a way to make bigger the probability > for a consciousness to manifest itself relatively to a "probable" universal > computational history. > Strictly speaking, running the movie dimimish Alice chance to have her > conscious experience (life) continue, at least relatively to you, because of > the many scratches the projector makes on the pellicle, which remove > relevant information for a safe reconstitution later (again relatively to > you). > > > 2) > > I give now what is perhaps a simpler argument > > A projection of a movie is a relative phenomenon. On the planet 247a, > nearby in the galaxy, they don't have screen. The film pellicle is as big as > a screen, and they make the film passing behind a stroboscope at the right > frequency in front of the public. But on planet 247b, movies are only for > travellers! They dress their film, as big as those on planet 247a, in their > countries all along their train rails with a lamp besides each frames, which > is nice because from the train, through its speed, you get the usual 24 > frames per second. But we already accepted that such movie does not need to > be observed, the train can be empty of people. Well the train does not play > any role, and what remains is the static film with a lamp behind each frame. > Are the lamps really necessaries? Of course not, all right? So now we are > obliged to accept that the consciousness of Alice during the projection of > the movie supervenes of something completely inert in time and space. This > contradicts the *physical* supervenience thesis. > > > Exercises. > > a) Someone could propose an alternate argument that a movie does not > compute (and so consciousness does supervene on it) by alluding to the lack > of causality in the movie: the movie does not handle the counterfactual > existing implicitly in computations (physical or not). Use Maudlin's > Olympization technic to refute that argument. > > b) Make fun by using a non dreaming Alice. Shows that the movie (film or > screen) graph border is needed to get the accidental zombies (the puppet). > > And then the "important" exercise (the original goal). > > c) Eliminate the hypothesis "there is a concrete deployment" in the seventh > step of the UDA. Use UDA(1...7) to define properly the computationalist > supervenience thesis. Hint: reread the remarks above. > > Have a good day. > > > Bruno > > > http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ <http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/%7Emarchal/> > http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ <http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/%7Emarchal/> > > > > > > > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ 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 -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
