On Sat, Dec 22, 2012 at 2:57 PM, meekerdb <meeke...@verizon.net> wrote:
> On 12/22/2012 11:36 AM, Jason Resch wrote: > > As to how computation might lead to consciousness, I think it helps to > start with a well-defined definition of consciousness. Take > dictionary.com's definition: > "awareness of one's own existence, sensations, thoughts, surroundings, > etc." > Well what is awareness? dictionary.com defines it as: > "having knowledge" > dictionary.com's simplest non-circular definition of knowledge is simply > "information". > > > As discussed earlier, you can have information in the Shannon sense, but > that is just measure over different possible messages. For it to be > information *about* something, to be knowledge, it has to be grounded in > the ability to act. > Right. But how do you define act? I think changing states within the process is sufficient. That is to say, a brain in a vat, an AI in a virtual reality, a person dreaming, etc. can all be conscious even though they have no externally visible actions. All the necessary action is internal to the mind itself. > This means that an aware system in the GoL must be able to interact with > it's environment based on its knowledge. > The Turing machine in the GoL could of course run an emulation of any mind in any virtual reality. The mind would never know its true incarnation is a vast grid of cells changing states. It is a little reminiscent of the holographic principal and how it might apply to ourselves: "In a larger and more speculative sense, the theory suggests that the entire universe <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universe> can be seen as a two-dimensional <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dimension> information structure "painted" on the cosmological horizon<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observable_universe#Particle_horizon>, such that the three dimensions<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_dimensions>we observe are only an effective description at macroscopic scales <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macroscopic_scale> and at low energies<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-energy_physics>." -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holographic_principle Jason -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
