On 24 Mar 2015, at 04:19, Russell Standish wrote:
On Tue, Mar 24, 2015 at 10:10:37AM +1100, Bruce Kellett wrote:
Russell Standish wrote:
On Tue, Mar 24, 2015 at 11:48:52AM +1300, LizR wrote:
On 23 March 2015 at 16:09, meekerdb <[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....?
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.)
Broadly, the idea is to use notion that movement is relative. If a
machine is moving through a fixed sequence of states, we can
equivalently set things up so the machine is inert, but the observer
moves in such a way that appearance is unchanged. The absurdity is
that this implies consciousness depends on the motion of the
observer.
No, it doesn't imply any such thing. The motion of the observer, or
rate of change of the sequence of states, is irrelevant to
consciousness. The only relevant thing is the states themselves --
the rate at which they are observed (or even if they are static)
does not matter.
Then clearly, you have no problem with the concept of a conscious
recording.
In order for the MGA to go through, conscious recordings need to be
considered absurd.
I personally, don't have an opinion either way, which is why I
consider that to be a rather serious flaw of the MGA.
Hmm... But with the stroboscope-movie, seeing a movie is a relatiive
motion. You make a flash on each picture, from pict one to the last
one, then you can make a movie with a centered falshing liight, and it
is only the presence of observers, which define a "movie" in some real
time, different for each observer. Then the presence of the observers
are not needed, and eventually you will make a consciousness of time,
in real time, supervening on something static.
Computationalism associates consciousness to the abstract person,
incarnated into a body which makes it possible to manifeste itself
relatively to some computations,.
A recording has no input, no output, and I guess you would not say yes
to a doctor proposing a recording of your future experience (provided
by some alien time traveller, say) instead of a brain/computer?
The problem is that this will entail that there is no consciousness in
any active brain or computer either, if we conceive them as 3p things
around us. Consciousness will be associated to infinities of machines
in arithmetic.
And I have no opinion about the truth of this. I just take
computationalism (TC + YD) seriously to see where we are driven, in
fact, to make the mind-body precise in that setting.
I doubt there is a flaw, I think, as I ask a question in the setting
of an hypothesis. What would it means for a recording to be conscious,
once we postulate computationalism? That might be consistent (see my
comment to Stathis) but it would introduce terrible difficulties, most
of them risking to be vocabulary difficulties.
MGA only lower the amount of occam razor needed to accept the
reversal, once we postulate comp.
I thought you were OK when I explained that computation/recording
assimilation is like the computation/Godel-number-of-a-computation
assimilation in arithmetic.
It is a bit like an assimilation of []p and p (hmm.. at some different
level, though).
For computation, we have a precise mathematical definition. For the
notion of recording, it is already fuzzy if they are physical, and
then how to define them, etc.
I will need to reread your paper on the MGA, may be I miss something.
Cheers,
Bruno
Bruno
--
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile)
Principal, High Performance Coders
Visiting Professor of Mathematics [email protected]
University of New South Wales http://www.hpcoders.com.au
Latest project: The Amoeba's Secret
(http://www.hpcoders.com.au/AmoebasSecret.html)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
--
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.
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
--
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.
