On 8/11/2014 9:27 PM, LizR wrote:
On 12 August 2014 15:50, meekerdb <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>>
wrote:
On 8/11/2014 8:26 PM, LizR wrote:
Well, I guess a physical UD would be made robust against quantum
uncertainty, like
all computers, but why do we need to assume QM apply?
The argument assumes it doesn't apply, so that the computation can be
deterministic.
I don't know that it affects the argument, but worries me a little that we
make this
unrealistic assumption; especially if we have include a whole 'world
context' for
the MG simulation.
Ah, I see. One of the assumptions of comp is that consciousness is a classical
computation. At least I think that's what it means to say that the Church-Turing thesis
applies. I suppose a question here is whether QM can introduce some "magic" that allows
it to create consciousness from a purely materialistic basis. If so then there's no need
for comp because consciousness isn't classically emulable....yes?
Although a quantum computer can compute some things much faster than a classical computer,
it still can't compute things that are Turing uncomputable, so I don't think it provides
that kind of magic. I was thinking more of the fact that the recorded inputs to B and the
response to the projection of the movie onto the graph will not be perfectly
deterministic, but only with high statistical probability. Also, in QM it generally makes
a difference to the evolution of the system whether other states are available even if
they are never occupied.
This is what I don't see. Why do A's internal processes have meaning,
while B's
don't - given that they're physically identical?
B's have meaning too, but it is derivative meaning because the meanings are
copies
of A's and A's refer to a world. So it's an unwarranted conclusion to say,
see B is
conscious and there's no physics going on. There's plenty of physics going
on in
the past that causally connects B to A's experience. Just because it's not
going on
at the moment B is supposed to be experiencing it isn't determinative.
Real QM
physics can require counterfactual correctness in the past (e.g. Wheeler's
quantum
erasure, Elitzur and Dolev's quantum liar's paradox).
Well, as I've mentioned previously I think time symmetry may sort out those awkward
retroactive quantum measurements. But anyway, I guess this is putting the schrodinger's
cat before the horse, in that comp only assumes classical computation and attempts to
derive a quantum world from it. So I guess we can't necessarily assume real QM physics,
or at least not unless we've shown comp to be based on false premises or internally
inconsistent, or have a rival theory of consciousness arising naturally from qm and
materialism, or some other good reason to do so. I think what I'm trying to say here is
that to assume comp must work with real physics is to assume from the start that there
is no reversal.
Well there's also the question of whether comp and the UD solve the hard problem any
better than psychophysical parallelism. Pierz did a good job of examining this and I made
some comments on his post. I would like to look at comp+UD as just another scientific
hypothesis which we will adopt when it makes some surprising prediction which is proved
out by tests. Obviously getting some surprising, testable prediction out of it is likely
to be very difficulty. But unlike Bruno I'm not much persuaded by logical inference from
logic, Church-Turing, or Peano arithmetic because I think they aren't "The Truth" but just
models we use in our thinking. Just reflect on how all logicians and philosophers would
have said, "No object can be in two different places at the same time. It's just logic." -
before quantum mechanics.
I'm not sure I follow you here. Why does making the simulation bigger
invalidate
the argument? Is there a cut-off point?
I don't know about a cut-off. The argument is a reductio. The conclusion
Bruno
makes is that no physical process is necessary to support consciousness,
OK
consciousness can be instantiated in a Turing machine simulation.
Sorry to split the sentence, but I must admit I thought that latter part was his initial
assumption, rather than his conclusion?
The initial assumption is consciousness can be instantiated by a physical computation (one
that replicates the I/O of your neurons), but step 8 is to show it must be independent of
the physical computation and can be instantiated by an abstraction.
But my argument is that the simulation must also simulate a world that the
consciousness interacts with, is conscious *of*, that a physical world is
necessary
for consciousness. If it's a simulated consciousness, then it can be a
simulated
physics but it has to be some physics.
Right, yes, I see. Or I think I see. That's implying that the comp argument is assuming
what it sets out to show, that is, it sets out to show that physics can be derived from
consciousness as computation, but if it has to introduce physics to show this, then the
argument has become circular. So if interactions with an environment are necessary for
consciousness to exist (as part of the definition of consciousness) then the argument is
necessarily circular. The question is whether the interaction is necessary, or
incidental - "incidental" would mean that consciousness has arisen in a physical world
through evolution, and hence is highly specialised as an agent interacting with that
world, but it could at least in theory arise some other way (e.g. inside a computer).
Although it's hard to imagine how any conscious being could learn anything useful
without interacting with some sort of world - it would sure be a blank slate otherwise.
So I guess the question boils down to: is a blank slate consciousness - one that isn't
aware of anything (except its own existence, I guess) possible?
It is in Bruno's conception. It is MOST conscious because it can go anywhere from there,
be anybody or any being. That's why he thinks intelligence, which he deprecates as mere
"competence", detracts from consciousness. It has narrowed or directed consciousness. As
you can see that is quite different from my idea of consciousness as something that arose
as a way for evolution to take advantage of perception mechanisms in doing learning,
prediction, and planning. I think consciousness is a certain kind of thought and it's
about something. Bruno thinks it's a mystic property of relations between computations,
e.g. being provable.
Or to put it yet another way, is Descartes right that "je pense donc je suis" or isn't
that enough?
Which I have to admit I don't know the answer to.
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