On 28 Mar 2015, at 00:54, Bruce Kellett wrote:
meekerdb wrote:
On 3/26/2015 11:05 PM, Bruce Kellett wrote:
I don't think even this follows. A computation is a computation --
it gives a definite result for definite inputs. It still counts as
a computation even if the same program running on different inputs
would give different results.
? Giving different results on different input is what
counterfactual correctness implies. A recording is not
counterfactually correct because it gives the same output no matter
what the input (effectively there is no input). If you don't
require counterfactual correctness, i.e. computing the correct
answer for different inputs, then a look-up table with just one
entry qualifies as a computation.
I understand counterfactual correctness, but I think the concept is
misapplied -- even to the extent of making a category error.
Counterfactual correctness can be ascribed to a computer/calculator
but not to a calculation. A calculator would not be counterfactually
correct if it gave the same output for every input, but a
calculation is a calculation! It is a single thing -- one output
from one input. If you change the input, in general you would get
different output. But then that would be different calculation. It
is a category error to ask for counterfactual correctness from an
individual calculation.
If I do a calculation with pencil and paper, writing out the steps
of my calculation, that is still a calculation even after I have
finished. It is still the same calculation 10 years later (if the
paper is intact). IIt is not counterfactually correct because I do
different calculations on different pieces of paper, leaving the
original recoded calculation intact. But it is still a calculation
-- what else would you call it?
A description of a calculation. It is has different of a calculation
than a movie of a murder is different from a murder, even if the movie
is "completely precise".
I think this basic confusion between the calculator and the
calculation renders the MGA toothless. It does not establish that
the recording cannot be conscious. The recording is as much a
calculation as the original. If you degrade the film/recording, then
you finally lose consciousness, but that is beside the point. It is
just like rubbing out or burning your original paper calculation. It
is only if you insist that your computing mechanism is
counterfactually correct that you can say that a recording cannot
reconstitute consciousness, but the computing mechanism is not the
calculation that corresponds to consciousness.
But then consciousness is not associated with the running by this or
that u, but by its existence only. That was the (perhaps subtle) point
we need.
Bruno
Bruce
Brent
I have a lot of trouble seeing that counterfactual correctness is
actually the distinction Bruno needs to make. He wants to
distinguish the active simulation from the passive rerun of the
same sequence of states. Why not just make this distinction,
simpliciter?
I am with Liz -- where is the actual contradiction with assuming
physical supervenience? That does not rule out the possibility of
supervenience on an effective simulation -- the simulation is run
on a physical computer, after all!
Bruce
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