On Sat, Nov 29, 2008 at 10:11:30AM +0100, Bruno Marchal wrote: > > > On 28 Nov 2008, at 10:46, Russell Standish wrote: > > > > > On Wed, Nov 26, 2008 at 10:09:01AM +0100, Bruno Marchal wrote: > >> MGA 3 > > > > ... > > > >> 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. > >> > > > > I don't think this step follows at all. Consciousness may supervene on > > the stationary unprojected film, > > This, I don't understand. And, btw, if that is true, then the physical > supervenience thesis is already wrong. The > physical supervenience thesis asks that consciousness is associated in > real time and space with the activity of some machine (with MEC).
I am speaking as someone unconvinced that MGA2 implies an absurdity. MGA2 implies that the consciousness is supervening on the stationary film. BTW - I don't think the film is conscious by virtue of the counterfactuals issue, but that's a whole different story. And "Olympization" doesn't work, unless we rule out the multiverse. > > > > Why does the physical supervenience require that all instantiations of > > a consciousness be dynamic? Surely, it suffices that some are? > > > What do you mean by an instantiation of a dynamical process which is > not dynamic. Even a block universe describe a dynamical process, or a > variety of dynamical processes. > A block universe is nondynamic by definition. But looked at another way, (ie from the inside) it is dynamic. It neatly illustrates why consciousness can supervene on a stationary film (because it is stationary when viewed from the inside). The "film", however does need to be sufficiently rich, and also needs to handle counterfactuals (unlike the usual sort of movie we see which has only one plot). > > > > > > >> > >> 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. > > > > I have no problems with this conclusion. However, we cannot eliminate > > supervenience on phenomenal physics, n'est-ce pas? > > We cannot eliminate supervenience of consciousness on what we take as > other persons indeed. Of course phenomenal physics is a first person > subjective creation, and it helps to entangle our (abstract) > computational histories. That is the role of a "brain". It does not > create consciousness, it does only make higher the probability for > that consciousness to be able to manifest itself relatively to "other > consciousness". But consciousness can rely, with MEC, only to the > abstract computation. > The problem is that eliminating the brain from phenomenal experience makes that experience even more highly probable than without. This is the Occam catastrophe I mention in my book. Obviously this contradicts experience. Therefore I conclude that supervenience on a phenomenal physical brain is necessary for consciousness. I speculate a bit that this may be due to self-awareness, but don't have a good argument for it. It is the "elephant in the room" with respect to pure MEC theories. > Sorry for being a bit short, I have to go, > > Bruno > > > > > http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ > > > > > -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- A/Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Mathematics UNSW SYDNEY 2052 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Australia http://www.hpcoders.com.au ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ 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 -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
