On 05 Feb 2011, at 01:47, Brent Meeker wrote:
On 2/4/2011 7:30 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
On 04 Feb 2011, at 01:59, Brent Meeker wrote:
On 2/3/2011 5:17 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
On 03 Feb 2011, at 01:18, Brent Meeker wrote:
On 2/2/2011 2:00 AM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
On Wed, Feb 2, 2011 at 6:45 PM, Brent Meeker<[email protected]
> wrote:
I think it very likely that the brain can be so modeled. But
the meaning
that simulated brain, as expressed in it's output decisions
relative to
inputs is dependent on the rest of the world, or at least of
it with which
the brain will interact - including the past evoutionary
history which led
up to the brain. Its computations have no canonical
interpretation in
themselves.
You can connect the simulated brain to transducers which convert
environmental inputs into electrical signals. But then, what
would
happen if the same electrical signals were input from data on
disk
rather than the environment? Would the brain's experience be
different? If so, how would it know where the data was coming
from?
It wouldn't know; and it's responses would have no meaning
except to someone who did know. Context is essential.
Otherwise you get the rock that calculates everything.
If the context is needed and is not Turing emulable, then comp is
just false.
If it is Turing emulable then the reasoning go through, unless
you have an objection, and it would be nice you try to say where.
Bruno
My reservation is that the context will be Turing emulable, but it
will have to be so large as to constitute a whole world. That
this is what is required that be self-interpreting.
But that is not an objection at all. It is just an affirmation that
our comp substitution level is so low that the doctor has to
emulate the entire physical universe to get an artificial brain.
No, the doctor doesn't have to do that because he's only
substituting for a little part of it and allowing it to interact
with the rest that is already existing.
That is a nice move to keep the doctor's job in case the Subst. level
is very low. But this is not an objection: it just appears that your
generalized brain is the universe (this leads to personal identity
problem, but that's another topic). If the generalized brain is Turing
emulable, then, even if it is as big as the physical observable
universe, the reasoning goes through.
But the reasoning still go through, and the laws of physics have
still to be retrieved from computer science, and so we keep the
qualia/quanta distinction, which is fine.
The only thing which *is* ruled out by having such a low
substitution level is the idea of buying *in practice* an
artificial brain. But this practice idea is not used in the
reasoning. I
I think it rules out the movie graph kind of brain as being
conscious of this world.
But this is already in comp. The movie graph contains a description of
a computation, but does not compute at all. If you build the movie
graph of the entire universe (like you have to do for the MGA
reasoning with your very low level) it will also not do any
computation, yet it will have the same physical activity as the entire
universe, and you will have to abandon the physical supervenience
thesis. Again, this show that the argument makes physics emerging on
the laws of computer science or numbers. As I just said, this shows
that by making the level sufficiently low, the number's phenomenology
extend to a form of internal physicalism. Now, I think few mechanist
would accept that their consciousness depends on far away events in
the universe, but who knows? This points on things that we can never
be sure if we assume comp, and the computationalist of tomorrow will
dispute ever the reasonable and the "real" level of substitution. It
is a weakness of comp, that by being so much not reductionist, and
mute on the level, it leaves us with still a large spectrum of
possibility between near Aristotelian and ultrapythagorean conception
of reality. But in all case physics emerges from addition and
multiplication.
Bruno
Brent
t is used in step 1-6 for making things easier, but is eliminated
by the step seven. If the entire physical universe is Turing
emulable, the UD will emulate it infinitely often, and the measure
problem remains (a nice problem given that its current solution
already explain many things, which are not explained, or are
explained away, by physicalism).
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
.
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.
