On 14 Feb 2011, at 18:46, Brent Meeker wrote:
On 2/14/2011 1:00 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
On 14 Feb 2011, at 07:13, Jason Resch wrote:
On Sun, Feb 13, 2011 at 10:46 AM, Brent Meeker <[email protected]
> wrote:
On 2/13/2011 5:21 AM, 1Z wrote:
On Feb 12, 3:18 am, Brent Meeker<[email protected]> wrote:
What do you think the chances are that any random object in
Plato's heaven, or any random Turing machine will support
intelligent life?
1 in 10, 1 in 1000, 1 in a billion?
Zero.
Does that allow us to argue:
1) A universe selected from an uncountably infinite number of
possibilities has measure
0
2) Our universe exists so it has measure>0
3) Our universe is not selected from uncountably infinite
possibilities
4) MUH indicates any universe must be selected from uncountable
infinite possibilities (since all
of maths includes the real line, etc)
5) MUH is false.
Hmmm. I think we argue that objects in Plato's heaven and Turing
machines are not the right kind of things to support life.
I am very puzzled by this statement. You could help me understand
by answering the following questions:
Why couldn't there be an accurate simulation of life on a Turing
machine?
How can entities within a universe that exists in Plato's heaven
distinguish it from a universe that does not?
That is a good argument which convinces many people, who actually
ask "what is the MGA for?"
Here I can imagine what 1Z could answer to "How can entities within
a universe that exists in Plato's heaven distinguish it from a
universe that does not?".
He assumes the existence of primary matter or of a primitively real
physical universe,
It's equivocation to speak of entities existing in a domain that
doesn't exist.
I agree.
If something like arithmetical universe exists, it exists in a very
different sense of the word than material objects exist.
Arithmetical universe (model of arithmetic theories) already exist in
a different sense than the existence of natural number. For the
existence of natural numbers you don't need to postulate sets or
'universes'. In the comp physics, both person and matter exists in a
quite different sense than numbers. All the different type of
existence can be explained intuitively with the notion of persons
views, or technically by the use of the modalities. "ExP(x)" means
usually that there exist a number n such that it is the case that
P(n), but the existence of matter will be described by a "quantized
formula" of the type BD(ExBD(P(n)), or something like that. The
intensional difference makes all the difference of the notion of
"existence" rather transparent. All existence are build from the
number existence, but none are equivalent to number existence which
can be taken as the most primitive form of existence.
If there are entities in that universe that are aware of it
(whatever that may mean) then they a perforce aware in a different
sense.
Not necessarily. If their awareness is emulated by a computation, then
such an awareness will not feel any difference if the computation is
done by this or that type of reality, but the content of their
consciousness, and the stability of the experience may depend on it in
the long term. The indeterminacy of their first person experience
depends on the set of all continuations available in the maximal
"everything" structure. That is why we can test the mechanist
hypothesis.
and will, by decision, attribute consciousness, only to the
creature made off that primary matter,
No, there is no need to assume primary matter. One need only
recognize that there is *this* universe which we are aware of and
exist in and it is not the same as some other universe which may or
may not exist in some different sense or another.
OK.
even if the consciousness relies in the computation implemented in
that matter. So 1Z accepts the idea that arithmetical truth is full
of zombies, like the "1Z" described in arithmetic through the
arithmetical emulation of our galaxy (say).
But that moves is made impossible by the MGA. To attach
consciousness to matter, you have to introduce something non Turing
emulable in that consciousness, or, like Jack Mallah did, attribute
a physical activity to a piece of matter having no physical
activity at all relevant with the computation.
But the idea of multiple worlds started with Everett whose
interpretation of QM implies that there are no pieces of matter with
no activity. The universe is defined by a wave function in a
Hilbert space and pieces of matter are just certain projections.
OK. I don't see why this change anything in the paragraph you quoted.
But this prevent to say "yes" to the doctor *qua computatio*.
No it doesn't. Whatever the doctor uses to replace neurons in your
head is also matter and also part of the universal wave function.
OK.
Do you (the reader of the list, not Jason) agree with the 323
principle? If the physical running of a computer entails some
consciousness, and if that running does not use the register 323,
does the same running of that computer with the "323 register"
deleted, run the same consciousness, or not?
I'd say that's an empirical question.
Certainly not. There are no empirical test for consciousness,
especially when it is restricted to one particular computation. We
know already that the behavior or the report of the experience will
not be different.
But in terms of answering the doctor we can say that leaving out
register 323 very likely makes it a different computer.
Obviously. But that is the question. The question is: given that the
computation c is the same with and without the register 323 (which is
not used during c), if consciousness supervenes on c with register
323, does consciousness supervenes on c without register 323?
Bruno
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
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