On 12 May 2014, at 16:12, Telmo Menezes wrote:
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.
Well, it is a special sort of mapping. There are 2^aleph_0 mapping in
general, but only aleph_0 computational mapping. So it is a bit more
than a mapping.
Any computer program p can be represented as a value under some
syntax.
Any program + some data, and don't forget that the universality
requirements makes obligatory that some programs will not stop,
without us knowing this in advance. Non termination entails a lack of
value, here. yet, a non stopping programs might access computational
states not met by terminating programs. So the notion of "value" is a
bit too much extensional, and miss intensional reality (related to
code and means of computation).
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.
OK.
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.
I am not sure you are taking into account the FPI. "we" are embedded
in infinities of computations, and we cannot know which one. We cannot
use a god or a matter to select a reality, without betraying the comp
assumption.
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).
But Peter Jones point is that there must be primitive matter for both
the computation and consciousness existing "really".
The result of the computation does not change depending on when I
started it, who started it and so on.
Peter Jones would say that it does matter. There are diophantine
equation which emulate you in our galaxy, but this will count for zero
in the measure because they are immaterial and not really existing,
according to Jones.
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?
By comparing the measure of computation going through my state in
arithmetic, and the measure of computations going through my states
according to the theory infered from observation.
Unfortunatelmy we cannot compute such measure, as we cannot know which
machine we are. but we can compare the logic obeyed by such measure,
and the math shows or suggests that the comp measure obeys a quantum
probability calculus, like nature seems to confirm. This makes the
quantum explained by digitalness + internalization of the views.
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.
See above.
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).
I have no problem with free-will. With Clark's definition, it does not
exist, but with a slight weakening of that definition, it makes sense.
Not sure free-will is related to this topics, though.
Tell me if my short explanation did work. My hole point is that the
immaterial consequences of comp are testable, by the indirect impact
on the structure of physical reality when the laws of physics emerge
from arithmetic. Roughly speaking, we can use the arithmetical
hypostases to measure experimentally our degree of computationalism.
Bruno
Best,
Telmo.
Bruno
Telmo.
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