On 3/23/2015 3:48 PM, LizR wrote:
On 23 March 2015 at 16:09, meekerdb <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:That's where the MGA comes in. It purports to show that one of the possible substrates is inert matter, which seems so absurd that we should conclude the matter plays no part whatsoever. That sounds like Maudlin's Olimpia argument....?
It is essentially the same. But I think Maudlin took the other side of the reductio and concluded that computationalism must be incomplete.
So far I get that different substrates can create the same computational states (by which I assume we mean the contents of registers and memory?) But how does the MGA get from showing that to showing that inert matter can be a possible substrate? (ISTM that a projected graph is not inert, if that's the argument.)
Yes, as I understand it that's the argument. It's consistent with Platonism. A computer program's execution written out on paper is just as much a calculation as a lot of transistors switching.
My caveat is that neither of them is conscious in THIS world because being conscious requires being conscious OF something. An isolated, pure consciousness is an oxymoron. Consciousness only exists as part of thoughts and thoughts only have meaning by reference to an external world and potential action in that world.
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