On 14 Aug 2014, at 15:15, Pierz wrote:
Liz did you ever get to grips with the counterfactuals business? In
case not, the way I would summarize it is this. Consider a computer
game in which you fly through some 3D landscape. The game is
"intelligent" because it can respond to whatever you do with the
controls. If you fly in any direction, it accurately changes the
rendered environment to show you what you see from the new position.
The intuition behind computationalism is that this intelligent
responsiveness is what defines consciousness.
I am OK, but strictly speaking, it is weaker than that. We don't say
that the "counterfactual correct response defines consciousness, but
we bet that there is a level where we preserve the relevant
counterfactual correct behavior (perhaps of our particles) such that
consciousness is preserved.
We don't define consciousness, we just bet that we know what it means,
in the same sense that we can understand the idea of surviving an
operation. Consciousness will not admit 3p definition, but it admit
some meta-definition using truth (which is itself not definable, so it
is coherent).
But now I can imagine recording someone's flight through the game
environment and replaying it. If I watched the recording, thinking I
was playing the game, and moved the controls in just such a way that
the recording showed me the right scenes by pure chance, I would
think the computer was being intelligent, when in fact it wasn't.
Even though it moves through the correct sequence of visual states,
the recording has no intelligent capacity to deal with
counterfactuals, i.e., the possibility of my moving the controls in
some other way from the ones that happen to coincide with the
recording's visuals.
Like it happens that you give a phone call and you hear a voice asking
you a question, and you begin to answer, and then realize it is a
voice recorded, to manage the counterfactuals you will need to push on
different buttons.
So consciousness can't supervene on the mere sequence of physical
states. It has to supervene on more than that, the actual (abstract)
computation including counterfactuals.
OK. Computation includes the CC, basically by definition of what is a
computable function. Most are handled by conditional structure, like
IF x = 0, then stop, else F(x - 1, y).
Consciousness supervenes stably on the truth of the situation leading
to your belief/representation. That include the counterfactuals. Some
words in english have meaning based on counterfactuals, like "regret"
which is the knowledge/belief that you could have acted differently in
some past situation. The grammar and notably the conjugation in most
natural language reflects well the counterfactuals.
Bruno
Maybe you already got all that, but I thought I'd spell it out... ;)
On Tuesday, August 12, 2014 9:22:44 AM UTC+10, Liz R wrote:
Having now read the paper, ISTM that the "counterfactual" part of
the argument is the only part that I really don't get. Or rather
ISTM that it demonstrates that consciousness can't supervene on
physical computational states, because those states can't know
anything about these counterfactuals, which by definition don't
happen. Then again, I also have some trouble with the multiverse
part. A MV "is" a quantum computer? How do we know that, without
even knowing the laws of physics? Is this something to do with
Feynman's idea about a QC as something that could perform exact
physical simulations? (if I got that right)
On 12 August 2014 11:03, LizR <[email protected]> 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.)
On 12 August 2014 09:40, LizR <[email protected]> wrote:
Got it, thanks. Not too long so I will be able to read it in the
near future :-)
I hope that is just an honest mistake, Bruno, and no one has been
messing with your email deliberately. Do you have another email you
can use? (e.g. a GMail one)
On 11 August 2014 20:43, Bruno Marchal <[email protected]> wrote:
On 11 Aug 2014, at 06:42, Russell Standish wrote:
Apologies to everybody. For some reason, when I clicked "publish",
Wordpress posted an earlier draft of the post, not the most recent one
I was working on.
I have now restored the correct version of the post - follow the link
"Draft paper here" to find the paper.
I got it. I will read it.
...
It looks now, that I have lost the ability to read my mails.
Apparently someone deleted my password at my ULB account. It might
take some time before I can read my mail again.
Sorry. It is a good thing that I got your text before this
happened. I might soon been unable to send message, too.
Bruno
Cheers
On Sun, Aug 10, 2014 at 08:08:55PM -0700, meekerdb wrote:
On 8/10/2014 3:38 PM, Russell Standish wrote:
As long, long time promised, I now have a draft of my "MGA revisited"
paper for critical comment. I have uploaded this to my blog, which
gives people the ability to attach comments.
http://www.hpcoders.com.au/blog/?p=73
Whilst I'm happy I now understand the issue, I still not happy with
how I've expressed it - the text could still do with some work.
So let the games begin!
I went to your blog and I found:
/In this paper, we reexamine Bruno Marchal's Movie Graph//
//Argument, which demonstrates a basic incompatibility between//
//computationalism and materialism. We discover that the
incompatibility//
//is only manifest in singular classical-like universes. If we
accept//
//that we live in a Multiverse, then the incompatibility goes away,
but//
//in that case another line of argument shows that with//
//computationalism, fundamental, or primitive materiality has no
causal//
//influence on what is observed, which must must be derivable from
basic//
//arithmetic properties./
But I didn't find "this paper"?
Brent
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