On 8/14/2014 11:40 AM, Platonist Guitar Cowboy wrote:
On Thu, Aug 14, 2014 at 7:59 PM, meekerdb <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
On 8/14/2014 1:41 AM, Russell Standish wrote:
On Thu, Aug 14, 2014 at 10:25:40AM +0200, Bruno Marchal wrote:
I agree with you in general, but I can agree a little bit with Liz
too, as I find Brent slightly sneaky on this issue, but all in all
Brent is rather polite and seems sincere. Yet his critics (of step
8) is not that clear. But then that is why we discuss. Anyone seeing
Brent's point can help to make it clearer.
His point is that he doesn't believe input free computations can be
conscious - there must always be some referrent to the environment
(which is noisy, counterfactual, etc).
Right.
Then it'd be no problem for you guys to clearly spell out what that environment
is.
Yes, that's a problem. The MGA considers a computational sequence that produces some
conscious thought. I think that in order for the computational sequence to have meaning
it must refer to some context in which decision or action is possible. That's what makes
it about something and not just a sequence of events. I initially thought of it in terms
of the extra states that had to be available for counterfactual correctness in response to
an external environment, e.g. seeing something, having a K_40 atom decay in your brain.
But now I've think the necessity of reference is different than counterfactual
correctness. For example if you had a recording of the computations of an autonomous Mars
Rover they wouldn't really constitute a computation because the recording would not have
the possibility of branching in response to inputs. And the inputs wouldn't necessarily
be external, at a different state of the Rover's learning the same sequence might have
triggered a different association from memory. So the referents are not necessarily just
external, they include all of memory as well.
If so, it prevents the MGA, and
Maudlin's argument, from working.
I guess for Brent that even dream states still have some referrent to
the environment, even if it be some sort of random synaptic noise.
I think it's pretty obvious that dreams have external referents. Don't your
dreams
have people and places and objects in them that you recognize as such?
I think the sharper question is whether there are referents when you think
of
numbers, when you do number theory proofs - essentially it's the question of
Platonism. Does arithmetic and Turing machine 'exist' apart from brains
that think
about them? Does putting "..." really justify inferences about infinite
processes?
Or on a more philosophical level, if everything exists does "exists" have
any meaning?
So you are sniping away at step 0 in the context of discussing step 8.
"Sniping" is pejorative. Is there some rule I can't question step 0? Unlike JKC I'm
generally willing to take something I doubt as a hypothetical to see where it leads. But
that doesn't mean I can never go back.
That is weird because this is a philosophy discussion at a bar concerning ultimate
questions rather than the thread's focus of discussion it would seem.
Seems it's devolved into a discussion of the style of discussion.
Brent
My bad, my mistake, Liz. It seems you were right. PGC
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