On 7/8/2014 6:14 PM, LizR wrote:
On 9 July 2014 12:36, meekerdb <meeke...@verizon.net
<mailto:meeke...@verizon.net>> wrote:
the proof that mga gives is a reductio assumibg it's the physical
instantiation
that gives the computation reality. The conscious computation is assumed at
the
start given the requirement that we are in a computationalist settings...
Yes, it assumes a computation can have meaning in itself without referents.
Aren't the referents supplied by recording the original computation? But I'm not sure
what "meaning" is here. Do brain cells have meaning while operating, or is it something
that emerges from their operation?
But that seems like a dubious assumption to me. How then do you answer the
paradox
of the conscious rock?
Do you need to? Rocks apparently emerge from infinite computational traces in comp
anyway...! (So perhaps they can support consciousness acccording to comp, or at least
they can instantiate some of the infinite computations that support it?)
mga is about physical instantiation.
That's what I said. And I think it fails to show that no physical
instantiation is
necessary because it relies on the meaning given to the original
computational
sequence to impute meaning to the MG.
This is a good point, and one I think I have got my head around now. However, it appears
to imply that meaning is the "supernatural extra stuff" I mentioned earlier, which is
supposed to differentiate an original computation from a replay.
So suppose we have a conscious computer frozen in state S1. We start it running and let
it interact with its environment via, say, a body in the form of a Mars Rover. We record
all the inputs it receives from its sensors, incoming signals from anywhere else, etc.
After say 10 minutes we stop the recording and we turn to another computer, on Earth,
with no body, also in state S1, and now we play back the inputs we recorded from teh
first one. Why would the second computer not behave exactly like the first one,
believing that it's interacting with the surface of Mars? And if it does, why would it
be any less conscious than the first one?
I'd say that if it instantiates conscious, thoughts then they take their meaning from
Mars, even though it's "second hand". Maudlin adds extra machinery to provide
counterfactual computations. This must assume interaction with some environment in order
that the counterfactual events can be defined. Or looked at another way, suppose there
were a different Europa rover which had different sensors and programs and actuators, but
by coincidence of it's interaction with the environment it happened to have a sequence of
inputs and outputs from it's cpu exactly the same as a sequence that occurred in Mars
rover. So when the sequence is played back in a simulation on Earth, does the simulation
experience being on Mars or on Europa?
Or am I missing the point?
Dunno. My point is that consciousness may be more holistic than supposed, i.e. it depends
on environment and maybe even on the evolutionary history.
Brent
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