On 20 Dec 2010, at 20:01, Brent Meeker wrote:
Russell has given the correct answer. Here by mind I mean the
conscious first person mind. By UDA-8 (MGA), consciousness is not
attached to the physical running of a computer, but is attached to
the logical number-theoretical relations describing that
computation ... and all similar (with respect to the relevant
levels) computations which exist in Sigma_1 (computational)
arithmetical truth (and which might bear on beliefs and proofs
which extends far beyond the computable).
But do you mean to assert that all computations have consciousness
attached? In what sense does this allow us to distinguish human
introspection from human perception from my dog's awareness from a
snail's awareness from a rock's awareness?
Not at all. Only very special computations have consciousness,
although it is better to attach consciousness to the sheaf of
equivalent computations, going through the relevant (relative) states.
For example, assuming many things by default, for any different
electron positions in the atoms in your brain you have a different
computations. Your actual consciousness is attached to all those
computations. If electrons are specified by continuous variable, your
consciousness will be related to a continuum of computations generated
by the UD. In that case you have to consider the dovetailing of the UD
on the real and complex numbers. Of course that continuum is an
internal first person view which existence is due to your non-
awareness of the delays made by the UD. It belongs to the
epistemology, not the ontology where everything is finite (can be
considered as finite once we assume digitalism).
Humans, dogs, snails and even rock (immaterial rock patterns) share
histories, notably thanks to the plausible linearity of the
computations at the bottom, and the computational depth of our very
long history. Actually I begin to think that computationalism makes
the big bang a cosmic explosion among an infinity of similar
explosions. First person computational depth is probably infinite (but
here I speculate a little bit, and I will not insist on that).
Bruno
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
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