On 8/13/2014 6:26 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
On 12 Aug 2014, at 11:24, Bruno Marchal wrote:
Hi,
I think it is better I let you discuss a little bit.
Yes Russell made a nice introduction to this problematic.
Below, I just put a <comment>, which you might try to guess from my preview post
(notably to Brent) on this issue.
On 12 Aug 2014, at 02:48, meekerdb wrote:
On 8/11/2014 4:03 PM, LizR wrote:
I have never got this idea of "counterfactual correctness". It seems to be that the
argument goes ...
Assume computational process A is conscious
Take process B, which replays A - B passes through the same machine states as A, but
it doesn't work them out, it's driven by a recording of A - B isn't conscious because
it isn't counterfactually correct.
I can't see how this works. (Except insofar as if we assume consciousness doesn't
supervene on material processes, then neither A nor B is conscious, they are just
somehow attached to conscious experiences generated elsewhere, maybe by a UD.)
It doesn't work, because it ignores the fact that consciousness is about something.
It can only exist in the context of thoughts (machine states and processes) referring
to a "world"; being part of a representational and predictive model. Without the
counterfactuals, it's just a sequence of states and not a model of anything. But in
order that it be a model it must interact or have interacted in the past in order that
the model be causally connected to the world. It is this connection that gives
meaning to the model. Because Bruno is a logician he tends to think of consciousness
as performing deductive proofs, executing a proof in the sense that every computer
program is a proof. He models belief as proof. But this overlooks where the meaning
of the program comes from.
<can you guess my future comment here?>
You might say that I model mind and belief ([]p), and the whole working of a computer,
by proof in arithmetic, but with comp, it has to be valid at the correct susbstitution
level for the case of correct machines.
But for consciousness, I model it by knowledge (modal logic S4), which I obtained from
the Theaetetus' method applied on belief/provability ([]p & p). Then I insist that this
is not modeled by *anything* you can define exclusively with 3p terms.
Insisting sounds like an attempt to cut off debate. You model it by true belief and then
you say belief is an attitude, which is implicitly a conscious thought or feeling.
Indeed that (meta) definition, in the comp-arithmetical frame makes knowledge being a
non propositional attitude.
Yet it depends on the proposition being believed being true.
I am even led (may be influenced by salvia) to the idea that consciousness is more in
the "& p" than in []p. The proof aspect of the brain machinery would be a filter of
consciousness and memory, and consciousness itself is more in the complementary of what
is provable. The meaning comes from truth, not proof.
Which leads to my position, which is that epistemology precedes ontology. How do we
determine what is true and worthy of belief. I think we can never be certain, so it is a
question of degrees of belief and weight of evidence. But those don't fit in your scheme
which depends on necessity and truth.
People that want to deny computers can be conscious point out that the meaning comes
from the programmer. But it doesn't have to. If the computer has goals and can learn
and act within the world then its internal modeling and decision processes get meaning
through their potential for actions.
OK.
This is why I don't agree with the conclusion drawn from step 8. I think the
requirement to counterfactually correct implies that a whole world, a physics, needs
to be simulated too, or else the Movie Graph or Klara need to be able to interact with
the world to supply the meaning to their program.
Hmm... If you want the full counterfactualness of a *universal* machine, you need the
UD*, and thus the full sigma_1 complete reality, which is tiny compared to the full
arithmetical truth, but still infinitely bigger than known physical universe.
I don't understand what "full counterfactualness" means. A human being or any physical
system reacts to the world in one way or another. What was asked was for was
counterfactual correctness, i.e. the the MG reacts the same as would the conscious being
emulated - which might be no change at all.
Then with a computer, the interaction with the environment are finite, and can be
re-entered in the computer machinery locally, and the MGA can be resume again.
They are finite over a finite time span, limited by the speed of light. But the number is
very large for even the shortest time period that could be called "conscious", and my
point is that this is a physical context. It can't be just any random counterfactuals,
but only those consistent with "meanings" instantiated in the brain.
But if the Movie Graph computer is a counterfactually correct simulation of a person
within a simulated world, there's no longer a "reversal".
Why?
Because it doesn't make the physical derivative from the pyschological, but rather makes
them interdependent and both derivative from computations.
Brent
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