On 18 Aug 2014, at 09:56, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
On 18 August 2014 15:20, meekerdb <[email protected]> wrote:
On 8/17/2014 8:49 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
Both consciousness and physics supervene on the computations,
which exist
necessarily. Consciousness does not supervene on the physics.
Yes, I agreed to that. The question was can consciousness
supervene on
computations that do not instantiate any physics? I think not.
I think that a sustained stream of consciousness will probably be
part of a
computation that instantiates physics - instantiates a whole universe
complete with physics.
That's answering the converse question. So if the early universe was
instantiated by a computation (a computation that instantiated
physics) then
you think that part of the early universe was a sustained stream of
consciousness. How do you conceive of this consciousness' relation
to the
physics? For example might it be some structure in the inflaton
field? Or
do you think of it as separate from physical structures?
I think of consciousness as a side-effect of, at least, the
computations that give rise to the type of behaviour we observe in
intelligently-behaving entities. It could also be that much simpler
computations have a much simpler consciousness, i.e. panpsychism, but
I don't know how to prove this; it's hard enough to prove that even
other people are conscious.
However, the point that I wanted to make was that if computation can
instantiate consciousness then there is nothing to stop a
recording, a
Boltzmann Brain, a rock and so on from doing so; for these
possibilities
have been used as arguments against computationalism or to
arbitrarily
restrict computationalism.
Why is it arbitrary to say that a computation that is very simple,
has not
possible branchings for example, cannot be conscious while some
more complex
computation, one controlling an autonomous Mars Rover for example,
may be?
What is arbitrary is to say that a computer that has unused components
inactivated, as per Maudlin or Bruno's MGA, is unconscious or
differently conscious.
Do you agree with Bruno that consciousness is all-or-nothing?
No, I think there are different degrees of consciousness.
Unless we have a vocabulary problem, this seems to contradict your
fading qualia argument. If you allow degrees of consciousness, it
becomes unclear why we can't have partial zombie. The guy would still
say "I don't feel any change", but actually would be less and less
conscious, just unconsciously so.
When I say that consciousness is all-or-nothing, I just mean that
either someone is conscious, or is not. It does not mean that there
are no consciousness state which looks like, when we come back from
them, as being slightly conscious. Those are only special altered
state of consciousness.
Bruno
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Stathis Papaioannou
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