Le 25 mars 2015 00:11, "meekerdb" <[email protected]> a écrit : > > On 3/24/2015 2:23 AM, Quentin Anciaux wrote: >> >> >> >> 2015-03-24 1:57 GMT+01:00 meekerdb <[email protected]>: >>> >>> On 3/23/2015 5:44 PM, LizR wrote: >>>> >>>> On 24 March 2015 at 13:07, meekerdb <[email protected]> wrote: >>>>> >>>>> 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. >>>> >>>> >>>> So is the idea to show that a recording is just as conscious as the original calculation? >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> 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. >>>> >>>> >>>> I am under the impression Bruno gets around that by potentially allowing the environment to be simulated as well. Or contrariwise, can't all the inputs to the conscisouness be provided as though it was in the world? (as for a brain in a vat for example. I mean hypothetically, and to simplify the argument, not as a general model of consciousness.) >>> >>> >>> Yes, he casually dismisses the objection by saying we'll just include the environment too. But that's my point that it's then no longer a new radical result. It's just saying that if you simulate a world it can include conscious beings who are conscious of that world. But IN THAT WORLD their substrate is not inert - even if it's inert in our world, e.g. consider the novel "Mody Dick" being simulated in a computer. To Ishmael and Ahab in the computer they'd be conscious and experiencing the hunt for the white whale. And, according to Platonists, they are as printed on the page too. >>> >> >> If the world is a computation, conscious part of it are subprogram that can be isolated by definition... > > > That's the point I disagree with.
If it's a program then you've no choice. > When Bruno starts the comp argument by asking if you would say "Yes" to the doctor, it is implicit that the doctor is going to replace some part or all of your brain, BUT it's going to remain within the same environmental context. Yes... But that context could be also simulated... In the end the only thing the conscious program can know, it knows it through an interface... > I think the "consciousness subprogram" can run without the context, but I think it gets it's meaning, what it's about, from the context The context is internal to the conscious subprogram as it is it by definition who gives meaning. The 'external' world is only inputs received from the interface of the subprogram, no more. - and I think that context has to be very broad, including evolutionary history for example. > > >> now that when they run, for their consciousness to have meaning they must be fed input that have meaning to the conscious subprogram is a tautology... >> >> Also, the MGA *never* assert that the consciousness simulated is conscious of *our* world > > > It's implied by his Alice discussion. When rerunning the program with the recorded initial input, by hypothesis the second run must be as conscious as the first when the inputs came from the 'real' external world... The program itself can't tell as it receives exactly the same inputs... Not similar inputs but *exactly* the same. So either the second run is as conscious as the first or none are. >If the computation were just some arbitrary program we would have no reason to think it instantiated consciousness. I never said it's an arbitrary program, I said it's a program thought to instantiate a conscious moment... However you determine it is a conscious moment in the first place is irrelevant for the argument. > We only think that because it is record to a conscious computation in our world. > > >> (as it is obvious it can't be as it isn't fed inputs from our world)... it only assumes that you're running a program who is thought to be conscious (simulating a conscious being) and shows that if you accept that, and you accept the supervenience thesis and so accept that it is conscious in virtue of running in bare matter, you have to accept that the same stream of consciousness supervene on the projection + broken gate. > > > But I'm not accepting the supervenience thesis as applied to an isolated sequence of states. Without the context (which is implicit in the counterfactuals) the same sequence of computations could correspond to two different meanings, two different conscious thoughts - just as the same set of differential equations can model two different physical systems. > > I'm not sure how this plays into the UD because there they are infinitely many threads of computation through the same state. The state cannot, by itself, instantiate a thought. A thought must require a long sequence of identical or similar states. But in the UD there are no counterfactuals, because every possibility occurs at some point and branches from the thread. At least that's how I understand it. > > Brent > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
