Bruno, I am a bit confused. To me, you said
>Or, you are weakening the physical supervenience > thesis by appeal to a notion of causality which seems to me a bit > magical, and contrary to the local functionalism of the > computationalist. This seems to say that the version of MAT that MGA is targeted at does not include causal requirements. To Günther, you said: >> Do you have different definition for MAT? Do you require causal >> dynamics >> for MAT? > > > MAT is very general, but indeed it requires the minimum amount of > causality so that we can implement a computation in the physical > world, if not I don't see how we could talk on physical supervenience. Does the MAT you are talking about include causal requirements or not? About your other questions-- > OK, so now you have to disagree with MGA 1. No problem. But would you > still say "yes" to the mechanist doctor? I don't see how, because now > you appeal to something rather magic like influence in real time of > inactive material. So long as that "inert" material preserves the correct counterfactuals, everything is fine. The only reason things seem strange with olympized Alice is because *normally* we do not know in advance which path cause and effect will take for something as intricate as a conscious entity. The air bags in a car are "inert" in the same way-- many cars never get in a crash, so the air bags remain unused. But since we don't know that ahead of time, we want the air bags. Similarly, when talking to the mechanist doctor, I will not be convinced that a recording will suffice... > The real question I have to ask to you, Günther and others is this > one: does your new supervenience thesis forced the UD to be > physically executed in a "real" universe to get the UDA conclusion? Yes. > Does MGA, even just as a refutation of "naïve mat" eliminate the use > of the concrete UD in UDA? No. (By the way, I have read UDA now, but have refrained from posting a commentary since there has been a great deal of discussion about it on this list and I could just be repeating the comments of others...) Also: Günther mentioned "SMAT", which actually sounds like the "CMAT" I proposed... so I'll refer to it as SMAT from now on. --Abram On Tue, Dec 2, 2008 at 12:18 PM, Bruno Marchal <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > On 02 Dec 2008, at 01:05, Abram Demski wrote: > >> >> Bruno, >> >> It sounds like what you are saying in this reply is that my version of >> COMP+MAT is consistent, but counter to your intuition (because you >> cannot see how consciousness could be attached to physical stuff). > > I have no problem a priori in attaching consciousness to physical > stuff. I do have problem when MEC + MAT forces me to attach > consciousness to an empty machine (with no physical activity) together > with inert material. > > > > >> If >> this is the case, then it sounds like MGA only works for specific >> versions of MAT-- say, versions of MAT that claim consciousness hinges >> only on the matter, not on the causal relationships. > > On the contrary. I want consciousness related to the causal > relationship. But with MEC the causal relationship are in the > computations. The thought experiment shows that the physical > implementation plays the role of making them able to manifest > relatively to us, but are not responsible for their existence. > > >> In other words, >> what Günther called NMAT. So you need a different argument against-- >> let's call it CMAT, for causal MAT. The olympization argument only >> works if COMP+CMAT can be shown to imply the removability of inert >> matter... which I don't think it can, because that inert matter here >> has a causal role to play in the counterfactuals, and is therefore >> essential to the physical computation. > > OK, so now you have to disagree with MGA 1. No problem. But would you > still say "yes" to the mechanist doctor? I don't see how, because now > you appeal to something rather magic like influence in real time of > inactive material. Or, you are weakening the physical supervenience > thesis by appeal to a notion of causality which seems to me a bit > magical, and contrary to the local functionalism of the > computationalist. > > The real question I have to ask to you, Günther and others is this > one: does your new supervenience thesis forced the UD to be > physically executed in a "real" universe to get the UDA conclusion? > Does MGA, even just as a refutation of "naïve mat" eliminate the use > of the concrete UD in UDA? > > It is true that by weakening MEC or MAT, the reasoning doesn't go > through, but it seems to me the conclusion goes with any primitive > stuff view of MAT or Matter activity to which we could attach > consciousness through "causal" links. Once you begin to define matter > through causal links, and this keeping comp, and linking the > experience to those causal relation, perhaps made in other time at > other occasion, you are not a long way from the comp supervenience. > But if you don't see this, I guess the conversation will continue. > > 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 -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
