On 12/6/2011 1:42 PM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 06 Dec 2011, at 18:25, Quentin Anciaux wrote:



2011/12/6 meekerdb <meeke...@verizon.net <mailto:meeke...@verizon.net>>

    On 12/6/2011 4:11 AM, Quentin Anciaux wrote:

         The only thing that matter is digitalness... the
        > fact that you run it on your pingpong ball computer
        doesn't matter.
        >
        It does matter. If you run computations on pingpong ball
        computer that
        interact with the environment


    This is relative to the environment. If you want to interact
    with the "simulated" brain, you *must* run at the same level.
    That does not preclude that the simulated brain can be run on
    any level, only interaction with you require a specific level...
    your level.

    A human being is not a closed system.  So the "substitution
    level" for Bruno's argument to go thru could include digital
    simulation of a large part of the universe - or maybe all of it.

    Brent


Yes.

But if all the universe is needed, then computationalism is certainly false and that would prevent any conscious AI and even if the argument could still go through with the whole universe... it seems really like plain old solipsism in that case.

Also, the argument is not about feasibility of capturing the consciousness of a living person and puting it in a computer but about the concept and the compatibility with materialism.

Yes, an environment is needed for consciousness, but I doubt that to capture an existing consciousness (mind uploading) the level would be more than neuronal or maybe atomic and hence the environment needed could be feeded via input/output system without it being explicitely included (weither the "real" one or a virtual one) in the captured consciousness.



If we assume comp, and if the whole physical universe is needed for the 'generalized brain', then, by comp, all the universe's states have to be digitally accessible, and the UD will still access to those states infinitely often. So the whole reasoning still go through, even in the case of a concrete physical UD (step seven).

Empirically this is doubtful, though. If the quantum indeterminacy relies on the first person indeterminacies, then we can bet that we share the computational states of "our matter constitution" at, or above, the quantum state of our bodies. Our level is probably above the quantum level. This makes QM saving comp from solipsism, and is coherent with Tegmark's argument that the brain does not exploit quantum superpositions when handling our relevant mechanist computational states (Sorry, Stephen). We most plausibly do share deep dynamical histories. Beware the collision with Andromeda!

Bruno


http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ <http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/%7Emarchal/>


Hi Bruno,

Yes, I am still reading this LIst. :-) Tegmark is not even wrong <http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=macroscopic+quantum+phenomena+biology&btnG=Search&as_sdt=0%2C41&as_ylo=&as_vis=1> but I do concede the point as it is not relevant to digital substitution but I, like Craig, caution against thinking that using classical theory to reason about consciousness is doomed from the start. Your result, for me, proves that material monism fails miserably as a T.O.E. but so does ideal monism. The irony is that they fail for the exact same reason, the problem of epiphenomena.

Onward!

Stephen

PS. I would like to see your argument against D. Deutsch's criticism of "abstract proof theory" in his new book.

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