On 13 May 2013, at 19:39, Stephen Paul King wrote:
We should add that computationalism postulates that consciousness is
a process that can be exactly specified by a recursively enumerable
function. No?
Well, OK, but with Church Thesis, we can just say "computable
function", or "mechanically generable" if you look at a function as a
set of input-outputs. The graph of a computable function is
recursively enumerable, or sigma_1.
Bruno
On Mon, May 13, 2013 at 1:16 PM, meekerdb <[email protected]>
wrote:
On 5/13/2013 5:41 AM, Telmo Menezes wrote:
On Sun, May 12, 2013 at 7:05 PM, meekerdb <[email protected]>
wrote:
On 5/12/2013 9:00 AM, Jason Resch wrote:
If your mom ate something different while pregnant with you, such
that you
developed with different atoms, does that mean someone else would
have been
born in your place and you wouldn't be conscious? Or if one
unexpressed
gene was different, would it be someone other than you looking
through those
eyes? What if one gene were different, but it was of little
consequence, or
what if multiple genes were different, etc. How much of the
circumstances
would have to change for you to never have been born? If you admit
that
different matter or different genes would not make it such that you
were
never born, then are you not all your siblings as well?
That doesn't follow. The most common theory of why you are you is
that the
structure of your brain and body encode computations that are
peculiar to
you. You are determined by the structure that effects these
computations.
This is independent of the particular atoms and molecules and even a
lot of
the structure. As Bruno puts it, it depends on the level of
substitution.
Just because there is a level, e.g. atoms, that makes no difference,
it
doesn't follow that there is not a difference at another level.
It's hard to have this discussion with a single word for "you". 1p-you
and 3p-you might make it easier. The 3p-you is characterised by a
number of physical processes that we more or less understand. For
example, if I fall and lose a bit of skin from my knee that won't
change much, but there is possible a relatively small set of neurons
that can be changed to alter my personality. But the idea that the
1p-you is determined at a substitution level seems silly to me
I said it was the most common theory. Not that it was right.
Computationalism is the theory that there is no substitution level
which doesn't instantiate you1 so long as the computation is the same.
(unless
we can find some fundamental process by which the 1p arises).
Otherwise, I find it easier to believe that there is only one 1p
conscious entity that gets instantiated on everyone (and possible
everything), at all times, in all possible universes.
Even assuming computationalism there can be different computations
and hence different 1p. As I understand Bruno's theory,
consciousness is not an entity, it's described by a relation between
threads of computation.
Brent
Telmo.
Brent
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
Groups
"Everything List" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it,
send an
email to [email protected].
To post to this group, send email to [email protected].
Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en
.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to a topic in
the Google Groups "Everything List" group.
To unsubscribe from this topic, visit https://groups.google.com/d/topic/everything-list/K7E-Vfwj4QU/unsubscribe?hl=en
.
To unsubscribe from this group and all its topics, send an email to [email protected]
.
To post to this group, send email to [email protected].
Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en
.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
Groups "Everything List" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it,
send an email to [email protected].
To post to this group, send email to [email protected].
Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en
.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
"Everything List" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email
to [email protected].
To post to this group, send email to [email protected].
Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
