On 04 Oct 2011, at 05:33, Brian Tenneson wrote:
From page 17
"It is my contention that the only way out of this dilemma is to
deny the
initial assumption that a classical computer running a particular
program can
generate conscious awareness in the first place."
What about the possibility of allowing for a "large number" of
conscious moments that would, in a limit of some sort, approximate
continuous, conscious awareness? In my mind, I liken the comparison
to that of a radioactive substance and half-life decay formulas. In
truth, there are finitely many atoms decaying but the half-life
decay formulas never acknowledge that at some point the predicted
mass of what's left measures less than one atom. So I'm talking
about a massive number of calculated conscious moments so that for
all intents and purposes, continuous conscious awareness is the
observed result.
Earlier on page 17...
"its program must
only generate a finite sequence of conscious moments."
I think I agree with you. I think that such a view is the only
compatible with Digital Mechanism, but also with QM (without collapse).
Consciousness is never generated by the "running of a particular
computer". If we can survive with a digital brain, this is related to
the fact that we already "belong" to an infinity of computations, and
the artificial brain just preserve that infinity, in a way such that I
can survive in my usual normal (Gaussian) neighborhoods.
Bruno
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
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