On 09 Jul 2014, at 04:59, LizR wrote:
On 9 July 2014 14:03, meekerdb <meeke...@verizon.net> wrote:
On 7/8/2014 6:14 PM, LizR wrote:
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".
So you are happy that the replay is conscious, and has the same
experiences and state of consciousness as the original? If so then
we may as well drop this stuff about meaning, which only seemed to
be there to distinguish the "really real" first time around
consciousness from the "not really real" second time around
consciousness.
I hope you see that the MGA is a reductio ad absurdum, and that you
are OK with the fact that a record of a computation is not a
computation, at least assuming comp, as nothing compute in a record of
a computation. OK?
That is why we just abandon the physical supervenience. Consciousness
has nothing to do with the physical activity of the brain or the
computer. Consciousness has everything to do with the immaterial
person, and all of its realization in arithmetic. Eventually a brain
is just a way for that consciousness to manifest itself relatively to
some 1p-plural stable universal neighbor.
Maudlin adds extra machinery to provide counterfactual
computations. This must assume interaction with some environment in
order that the counterfactual events can be defined.
Yes, I didn't get that. All that unused machinery ... the MGA seems
a lot tidier, at least.
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?
If they are the SAME inputs then it experiences whatever the Mars
AND Europa rovers experienced, according to comp (or according to
materialism, for that matter). At least it does assuming the two
rovers have identical experiences, by which I assume you mean they
started at some point in time in the same machine state (otherwise
the Mars one knows its on Mars anyway, and can't have the same
conscious states as the Europa one, which knows it's on Europa).
So if you make their states of consciousness identical at the start
time (by hypothesis, this means that they are both equivalent to
Turing machines in a specific state) and they happen to have the
same inputs, and the whole thing gets replayed by a Turing machine
on Earth, then that machine has the same experience (which would
have to be along the lines of "Where am I? I don't know, but it
looks like a bunch of rocks..." Or whatever it happens to look like.
The MGA assumes you start the system in some specified state and
replay the inputs. I can't see any wiggle room for this to be a
different conscious experience no matter how many times you do it.
Comp says it's literally the same states of consciousness.
My point is that consciousness may be more holistic than supposed,
i.e. it depends on environment and maybe even on the evolutionary
history.
I think comp covers this when Bruno says that you may have to
simulate more than just the person's physical form, but perhaps
their surroundings too. But in any case "depends on" is irrelevant
if consciousness is Turing emulable, as far as I know a state of a
Turing Machine doesn't care how it got into that state, it's simply
in it.
OK.
Asking for the presence of the environment is like asking for a lower
level, and does not change anything when confronted to UD* or the
arithmetical reality. It only makes the high level used by many neuro-
philosophers less plausible, and makes step 1-6 harder, without
reason, as the step 7 works for all level, with all sort of Turing
emulable *generalized* brains, including oracles.
Bruno
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