On 3/26/2015 7:16 PM, LizR wrote:
On the subject of counterfactual correctness, isn't that the point of Olimpia and Klara? My problem with counterfactual correctness is (probably the same as Maudlin's?) -- how does the system /know/ it's counterfactually correct if it doesn't actually pass through any of the "what-if" states? To put it another way, when you have a recording of the conscious computational states being replayed, what difference could be made by the presence (or absence) of all the extra bits that /would/ deal with counterfactual correctness if a different computation was being replayed, but happen in this case not to be used? I can't see how this could make any physical difference to the states being replayed (unless counterfactual correctness introduces some nonphysical magic into the system?)
I see two possible answers. First, in a quantum world there is a superposition of all those "counterfactual" states, so they are really present, but only observable as different relative states. Of course this already invokes QM and physics, rather than deriving them. But maybe it can be shown that the infinite threads of the UD serve to test all the counterfactual states.
Or, secondly, although there is no physical difference in the sequence of states in the replaying, consciousness is not physical and so could be absent. This doesn't require that consciousness be magic. If it is the abstract thing called "computation" then in the abstract it needs to counterfactually correct to count as computation.
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