On 8/12/2014 2:08 AM, LizR wrote:
On 12 August 2014 17:17, meekerdb <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: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 graphwill not be perfectly deterministic, but only with high statistical probability. Also, in QM it generally makes a difference to the evolution of the system whetherother states are available even if they are never occupied.OK, I think I follow. This would appear to assume that physics precedes computation, in an explanatory sense, which I would say means it probably assumes comp is false as a premise?
There I agree with JKC. "Comp" is ambiguous. If it's just that it would be a good bet to have the doctor replace some brain parts with I/O functionally identical parts, then no that is not assumed false. But Bruno claims that the whole argument, through step 8, follows from "comp", which I doubt. The problem is that it's a reductio ad absurdum. When your argument reaches an absurdity then it implies something in the chain of inference is wrong. But it isn't necessarily the main premise you started with; it can be a mistake anywhere along the way.
Well there's also the question of whether comp and the UD solve the hard problem any better than psychophysical parallelism.Yes indeed, I haven't really got to grips with that. I think the only way in which comp tries to tackle the hard problem is (something to do with) the fact that an infinite number of computations are involved. I must admit I have great difficulty even thinking about the hard problem, my tendency is to dismiss it as either "too mystical" or "too nonexistent". But I do feel there is an ineffable quality to consciousness. (Or is the word numinous?) On days which start with a 'T', at least.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. Yes.(I suppose if one didn't have experience of consciousness, predictions of incommunicable qualia and so on might be surprising...if something that didn't have experience of consciousness could be surprised, at least. But yes,)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.And indeed physicists. Although does QM say unequivocally that an electron, say, can be in two places at the same time, or does that depend on the model? (I know the wave function can be in lots of places at the same time, of course).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.Yes. I'm only quibbling here, but I think you only need the bit before the comma to make your point. (I think the part after the comma comes into his argument at about step 6?).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.Does Bruno actually say what he thinks consciousness is? (This is probably somewhere beyond the MGA, which is where I tend to get stuck...)
When I've asked directly what it would take to make a robot conscious, he's said Lobianity. Essentially it's the ability to do proofs by mathematical induction and prove Godel's theorem. But "ability" seems to be just in the sense of potential, as a Turing machine has the ability to compute anything computable.
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