On Sun, May 11, 2014 at 9:46 AM, Bruno Marchal <[email protected]> wrote:
> > On 10 May 2014, at 12:12, Telmo Menezes wrote: > > > > > On Sat, May 10, 2014 at 8:30 AM, LizR <[email protected]> wrote: > >> On 10 May 2014 17:30, Stathis Papaioannou <[email protected]> wrote: >> >>> >>> >>> On Saturday, May 10, 2014, LizR <[email protected]> wrote: >>> >>>> I guess one could start from "is physics computable?" (As Max Tegmark >>>> discusses in his book, but I haven't yet read what his conclusions are, if >>>> any). If physics is computable and consciousness arises somehow in a >>>> "materialist-type way" from the operation of the brain, then consciousness >>>> will be computable by definition. >>>> >>> >>> Is that trivially obvious to you? The anti-comp crowd claim that even if >>> brain behaviour is computable that does not mean that a computer could be >>> conscious, since it may require the actual brain matter, and not just a >>> simulation, to generate the consciousness. >>> >>> If physics is computable, and consciousness arises from physics with >> nothing extra (supernatural or whatever) then yes. Am I missing something >> obvious? >> > > Yeah, I always feel the same about this sort of argument. It seems so > trivial to disprove: > > "even if brain behaviour is computable that does not mean that a computer > could be conscious, since it may require the actual brain matter, and not > just a simulation, to generate the consciousness." > > 1. If brain behaviour is computable and (let's say comp) > 2. brain generates consciousness but > 3. it requires actual brain matter to do so then > 4. brain behaviour is not computable (~comp) > > so comp = ~comp > > I also wonder if I'm missing something, since I hear this one a lot. > > > I guess other might have answer this, but as it is important I am not > afraid of repetition. O lost again the connection yesterday so apology for > participating to the discussion with a shift. > > What you miss is, I think, Peter Jones (1Z) argument. He is OK with comp > (say "yes" to the doctor), but only because he attributes consciousness to > a computer implemented in a primitive physical reality. Physics might be > computable, in the sense that we can predict the physical behavior, but IF > primitive matter is necessary for consciousness, then, although a virtual > emulation would do (with different matter), an abstract or arithmetical > computation would not do, by the lack of the primitive matter. > I agree that such an argument is weak, as it does not explain what is the > role of primitive matter, except as a criteria of existence, which seems > here to have a magical role. (Then the movie-graph argument, or Maudlin's > argument, give an idea that how much a primitive matter use here becomes > magical: almost like saying that a computation is conscious if there is > primitive matter and if God is willing to make it so. We can always reify > some "mystery" to block an application of a theory to reality. > Ok, I tried to think about this for a while. It appears that it also connects with the issue "can there be computation without a substrate?". Please see what you think of my thoughts, sorry if they are a bit rough and confusing: In a purely mathematical sense, it seems to me that computation is simply a mapping from one value to another. Any computer program p can be represented as a value under some syntax. So, taking Lisp as an example, there is a function L such that: L( (+ 1 1) ) = 2 By doing the computation, we in the 1p can know the value of L(p) for a certain p. If p is: (fact 472834723947) Then we cannot do it in our heads. We have to have some powerful computer, spend a lot of energy and so on. Of course, due to the halting problem, the mapping is not guaranteed to exist, and so on. These mappings already exist in Platonia. Why do we have to spend so much energy and effort to obtain some of them? This only seems to make sense if we are embedded in the computation ourselves and, somehow, we have to attain a position in the multiverse where the mapping is known. Once the mapping is known, I can communicate it to you without any further computational effort or energy spending. So according to Peter Jones, consciousness is generated by the effort of moving from one observer position to another. (even rejecting the MWI, even in the classical world, the thing can be seen as a tree of possible future states). The result of the computation does not change depending on when I started it, who started it and so on. This seems, as you say, as an appeal to magic. The main questions that occur to me are: how can such an hypothesis be falsified, and if it is true, where is the ontological difference? If you accept comp but then make such a move, you are proposing something that is fundamentally untestable and that leads to the exact same consequences of its opposite. It feels to me a bit like the "free will" discussion which, in my view, is solved by the simple realisation that the question does not make sense in the first place (here I agree with John Clark). Best, Telmo. > Bruno > > > > > > > > > > Telmo. > > >> >> >> -- >> 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. >> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. >> > > > -- > 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. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > > > 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. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. 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