On 27 Mar 2015, at 02:04, Bruce Kellett wrote:
Bruno Marchal wrote:
On 26 Mar 2015, at 08:05, Bruce Kellett wrote:
I simply say, so what! Counterfactual equivalence does not have
any independent justification, and it is highly unlike to be
sensible, even in the context of computationalism.
You are quick here.
I might explain the stroboscope machinery which might help me to
ask you what you mean by consciousness supervening to a recording,
given that no computation at all is involved in the recording.
Basically, because the simulation of any given conscious state can
be carried out an any computer -- whatever the architecture,
physical construction, or programming language. As long as the
original state is accurately simulated, the conscious state will
be the same.
It is not the state which must be correctly simulated, it is the
relation between those state/ You need the truth of the proposition
IF the input change, I do some this or that". That truth is part of
what define my person, and it is not applied in the movie. The
movie is a sequence of description of states, not a sequence of
states related by some universal number.
As is usual with debates of this kind, I think we are talking about
two different things. When you introduce the possibility of the Dr
replacing your brain with a simulation, you mean "an artificial
intelligence program initialized by the synaptic weights read out
from your old brain". In other words, this is not simply a recording
of the state of the brain at one instant, it is a full description
that would enable the brain to be reconstructed. In other words, it
is a prescription for producing a model of your brain -- a simulation.
OK (but that is one half of the MGA)
I agree it is clear that this model is conscious only when it is
running.
Accepting some supervenience thesis, but eventually the time of the
experience will be part of the experience, and all that will be
associated to relative (and static) number relations.
If you write down the Godel number of the description, that is a
static object and would not be considered conscious in itself.
Yes. But not because it is static. More because, alone, it has no
intrinsic meaning. The meaning is in the more general relation with
the universal number implementing the computation.
But this description could be used to build a model in any medium,
be it a computer, or a system composed of billiard balls. Provided
the exact details are modelled, the model will be conscious when the
simulation is run.
"run" in the math sense, yes. Not necessarily "run by this or that u,
physical or arithmetical.
The other thing (that seems to be introduced with the MGA) is the we
observe the active brain and record it from instant to instant in
sufficient detail that we can observe which neurones are active,
which connections are made, and in which order. This is effectively
the "movie". It records a certain period of conscious activity, but
it does not contain the information necessary to construct a model
that can go on operating independently outside the original
recording period.
OK.
The question is: if I replay the recording of the second type, do I
recreate the conscious experience? Note that this is not a
simulation in the normal sense,
It is not a simulation at all. Only a mimicking of the physical events
that was implementing the computation. Now, there is no computations
at all. Only a peculiar description of a computation.
it is a replay of a recording of the relevant parts of the brain
undergoing conscious activity. If conscious supervenes on the
physical brain so that the pattern of connections and neurone
firings constitute the physical manifestation of the conscious
experience, then rerunning the recording will recreate the conscious
experience.
Yes. If.
It is essentially the same as if I am running the simulation on the
computer I observe all the registers and memory of this computer
then recreate exactly this pattern of registers and memory data by
some other means than by running the original program. If one
creates a conscious experience, then so does the other.
Yes, but the second is absurd, and so the first one also, and we will
abandon it.
The argument seems to be that the replay of the recording will not
recreate the conscious experience because it is not counterfactually
correct.
For that reason, or just because because we can make it
conuterfacually correct again, without adding physical activity, but
only inert "klara". We can even eliminate all physical activity.
I do not think that it has been demonstrated that this is relevant.
It has, in different ways (stroboscope, Maudlin's Klara, etc.)
If exactly the same physical activity of the brain has been
replayed, then exactly the same consciousness would be experienced.
That would entail a confusion of the type "0" and 0.
This is the meaning, as I see it, of saying that consciousness
supervenes on the physical state of the brain (or, probably more
correctly, on the sequence of physical states). Sure, replaying the
movie does not reconstruct an individual that can go on functioning
independently once the movie finishes -- but that was not the idea.
We are reproducing a conscious moment, not simulating a conscious
entity in its entirety.
The Movie Graph Argument is an attempt to argue that this concept of
physical supervenience is absurd, so that consciousness supervenes
only on the (counterfactually correct) computation. I think the
argument fails because it assumes what it attempts to prove. Namely,
it assumes that physical supervenience is false (absurd).
I don't think so. We can come back on this, or perhaps we get it with
PGC and Quentin explanation.
Bruno
Bruce
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