On 19 Aug 2014, at 21:04, Platonist Guitar Cowboy wrote:
On Tue, Aug 19, 2014 at 6:16 PM, meekerdb <[email protected]>
wrote:
On 8/19/2014 8:21 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
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.
If your altered state of consciousness has no self-awareness, is it
still "consciousness"? And there's self-consciousness, i.e. being
aware you are thinking. So it's not 'fading' qualia, it different
categories of consciousness. I'd say my dog has self-awareness,
e.g. he knows his name. But I'm not so sure he is self-conscious.
The koi in my pond are aware, but I doubt they are self-aware.
If one assumes that physics is not Turing emulable, due to a sort of
random FPI selection property, where it thus becomes measure on
infinities of computations, then I don't see a problem to reason
"consciousness is perhaps closer in kinship to truth/reality than to
some Turing emulable structure".
OK. Although I would put it in this way: if one assumes that one is
computable, then by the random FPI selection property physics has to
have at least some non computable components (which might the quantum
observable in some base, or not).
This would be another type of "brute fact", even though on the
surface, it would seem that comp implies consciousness to be
something Turing emulable (gotta watch out...). So, with this line
of argument, in basic existential sense, consciousness just is there
or it isn't.
When I used "degrees" earlier in the thread, I was thinking altered
states, that suggest that capacity of self-reference and amnesia
relative to some normal level (e.g. "I am really drunk, not just
tipsy"), is computable, so there appears to be more/less. Perhaps
because the machine level of description IS amenable to influence by
quantifiable things, like dosage of foods and chemicals. But I guess
this would boil down to some phenomenological 1p view. It's tricky
because consciousness pastes the machine to truth, so there is a lot
of potential for talking nonsense here... PGC
I agree. In this frame it comes from the simple "self-referential
tautology" (Gödel's II), <>t -> <>[]f, provable by the machine. The
supreme difficulties for the machines: the consistency of
inconsistency, which follows from consistency.
In the toy realm of the ideal rational machine, public certainty is
already a form of madness. But no so for private certainty, nor first
person plural private certainty, but then only confined in that
private 1p space (and never imposed on others (but then: what for the
children? I can't solve that problem).
For a platonist, the freedom of religions seems like pushing the
political correctness up to the point to let your plane piloted by
monkeys.
Freedom of consistent religion and medicine with probable facts,
without the traditional misuse of statistics, of course.
Bruno
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