On 14 Jan 2009, at 18:40, Brent Meeker wrote:
>
> Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
>> 2009/1/14 Brent Meeker <meeke...@dslextreme.com> wrote:
>>
>>> However a Turing machine is not just a set of states, it also
>>> requires a
>>> set of transition rules. So in the same abstract way that the
>>> integers
>>> are ordered by "succession" the computational states of a Turing
>>> machine
>>> are ordered. Whether just abstract rules, without implementation,
>>> are
>>> sufficient isn't clear to me.
>>
>> In an actual physical computer the transition rules are represented
>> by
>> the causal links between the states, so that a particular input will
>> reliably give rise to a particular output. But I return to my
>> question
>> about what would happen if there were a discontinuity in a sequence
>> of
>> states, so that s1 to s10 on m1 are causally linked, s11 to s20 on m2
>> are causally linked, but there is no link between m1 and m2, i.e. m2
>> just happens to start in s11 accidentally. Assuming that s1 to s20
>> occurring in a single machine results is a few moments of
>> consciousness (which is to say, assuming that computationalism is
>> true), what would happen if the sequence is broken in the way just
>> described?
>
> I suspect something is lost. You are thinking of the states as
> abstract steps
> in a computer program. But a computer program requires a computer
> to run
This is true, but the word "run" is ambiguous. It could be a
mathematical run. It is digital some we can use the natural numbers
and the successor relation for the first order time of the UD run.
Independent subcomputations manage their own "time". Physical time is
something else: it emerges in the plural first person perspective.
From the point of view of the machine it makes no difference (it is
the MGA point).
> and
> the computer implements distributed spatiotemporal links.
This of course is not proved, but admittedly required for a materialist.
(I guess you were saying: "the computer is implemented by
spatiotemporal links")
> In general you cannot
> take even a digitial computer and freeze it in a instant of time,
> call that a
> state, and restart it without any effects.
Apparently, homeotherm animals can be frozen and heated back and still
keep even their short term memory, if I remember correctly (!).
Experiences with rats suggest this is the case, according to Michel
Jouvert (the discoverer of REM sleep).
But what I really want to say is this. Even if you were true, or
Jouvet false, actually even if our relevant brain state was a quantum
state, which when unknown are not duplicable, it would change nothing.
I suppose some high level in UDA(1...6) only for making the reasoning
more easy. At step seven, all what matters is that there is a level
were you are in principle digitally describable, be it the galaxy .
The reason is that if such a level exist then the UD will access that
state, infinitely often, in many subcomputations, and
subsubcomputations.
And this gives the fundamental first person (plural) indeterminacy:
the fact that each computation, from the 1-pov, more exactly from the
obligatory (by UDA('1...6)) 3-pov on the 1-pov, bifurcate or
differentiate into 2^aleph_zero histories in the universal deployment.
> Switches are in intermediate states,
> EM waves are propagating, electrons are diffusing - it is not a
> static thing
> like a step in a program.
I think comp explains the appearance of continua, and the relative
correctness of that view. But that "thing", the concrete computer, is
a local approximation of the true thing (with the comp assumption). If
its representation abilities are locally enough stable relatively to
you, it will make possible for the "true thing" to manifest itself
relatively to your histories. The "true" thing being the person, not
its relative (to you) envelop or description.
>
>
> In terms of Bruno's teleporter, one might say yes accepting that
> there would be
> a one-time gap in consciousness (ever had a concussion?), but one
> would probably
> hesitate if the there was to be a gap every 10ms.
From the ultimate third point of view, there are no gap, or there are
gaps everywhere, that could depend on the topology or topologies you
will extract from the numbers. Strictly speaking there are only the
natural numbers and their many arithmetical relations. Now some
arithmetical relation define or represent universal computation(s),
including all finite portions of the universal deployment.
From the first point of view, there is no gap. For the same reason
that the Everett observer, when measuring, with an {UP,DOWN}-measuring
apparatus a particle in the state UP+DOWN, will not feel the split or
feel self-superposed. The first person experience is determined by the
possible relations you have with your most probable universal history,
among already 2^aleph_zero very similar universal histories. Those are
just arithmetical relations (assuming ...). From the first person
point of view, your concern is not limited to the finite portions of
the universal deployment: you are directly concerned by the infinite
deployment, in its entirety, and this just because you cannot be aware
(UDA 4) of the more and more monumental gaps generated by the UD, or
existing in UD* (the universal deployment).
I could speculate on the fact (not needed in the UDA) that we can
never be unconscious. In the morning, when we wake up, we can have the
feeling that we have been unconscious, but that feeling could be a
mind construct, a programmed amnesia on the conscious activity of the
night. *the* "unconscious" seen as what you are not conscious *of*,
could still make sense, but it could be that a person is never
unconscious: gaps would be false memories (having some role). Although
always conscious, the person could and usually is unconscious *of*
many things, of course, like a person can forget things. This leads to
the fusion (of person and/or histories) topic. Differentiation and
Dedifferentiation.
Bruno
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
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