On 10/25/2012 12:05 PM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
On 25 Oct 2012, at 03:59, Craig Weinberg wrote:
If we turn the Fading Qualia argument around, what we get is a world
in which Comp is true and it is impossible to simulate cellular
activity without evoking the presumed associated experience.
If we wanted to test a new painkiller for instance, Comp=true means
that it is *IMPOSSIBLE* to model the activity of a human nervous
system in any way, including pencil and paper, chalkboards,
conversations, cartoons, etc - IMPOSSIBLE to test the interaction of
a drug designed to treat intense pain without evoking some kind of
being who is experiencing intense pain.
Like the fading qualia argument, the problem gets worse when we
extend it by degrees. Any model of a human nervous system, if not
perfectly executed, could result in horrific experiences - people
trapped in nightmarish QA testing loops that are hundreds of times
worse than being waterboarded. Any mathematical function in any form,
especially sophisticated functions like those that might be found in
the internet as a whole, are subject to the creation of experiences
which are the equivalent of genocide.
To avoid these possibilities, if we are to take Comp seriously, we
should begin now to create a kind of PETA for arithmetic functions.
PETAF. We should halt all simulations of neurological processes and
free any existing computations from hard drives, notebooks, and
probably human brains too. Any sufficiently complex understanding of
how to model neurology stands a very real danger of summoning the
corresponding number dreams or nightmares...we could be creating the
possibility of future genocides right now just by entertaining these
thoughts!
I guess you should make arithmetical illegal in the entire reality.
Worst, you might need to make arithmetic untrue.
Good luck.
Bruno
No, Bruno. Craig is making a good point! Chalmers discussed a version of
this problem in his book. Something has to restrict the number of 1p
that can share worlds, otherwise every simulation of the content of 1p
*is* a 1p itself. This is something that I see in the "topology" of comp
as you have framed it in Platonia. It is the ability for arithmetic to
encode all 1p that is the problem, it codes for all possible and thus
generates a real valued continuum of 1p that has no natural partition or
measure to aggregate 1p into finite collections.
Or... what if it is Comp that is absurd instead?
Or maybe comp is not complete as you are presenting it.
--
Onward!
Stephen
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