2015-03-29 21:25 GMT+02:00 meekerdb <[email protected]>:
> On 3/29/2015 1:33 AM, Quentin Anciaux wrote:
>
>
> Le 29 mars 2015 09:03, "Bruce Kellett" <[email protected]> a
> écrit :
> >
> > meekerdb wrote:
> >>
> >> On 3/28/2015 11:54 PM, Bruce Kellett wrote:
> >>>
> >>> meekerdb wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>> On 3/28/2015 11:02 PM, Bruce Kellett wrote:
> >>>>>
> >>>>> meekerdb wrote:
> >>>>>
> >>>>> The calculation written out on paper is a static thing, but the
> result of that calculation might still be part of a simulation that
> produces consciousness. Though, unless Barbour is right and the actuality
> of time can be statically encoded in his 'time capsules (current memories
> of past instances)', I was thinking in terms of a sequence of these states
> (however calculated).
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> Yes, I agree that the computation should not have to halt (compute a
> function) in order to instantiate consciousness; it can just be a sequence
> of states. Written out on paper it can be a sequence of states ordered by
> position on the paper. But that seems absurd, unless you think of it as
> consciousness in the context of a world that is also written out on the
> paper, such that the writing that is conscious is /*conscious of*/ this
> written out world.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> My present conscious state includes visual, auditory and tactile
> inputs -- these are part of the simulation. But they need simulate only the
> effect on my brain states during that moment -- they do not have to
> simulate the entire world that gave rise to these inputs. The recreated
> conscuious state is not counterfactually accurate in this respect, but so
> what? I am reproducing a few conscious moments, not a fully functional
> person.
> >>
> >>
> >> But isn't it the case that your brain evolved/learned to interpret and
> be conscious of these stimuli only because it exists in the context of this
> world?
> >
> >
> > Yes.
> >
> >
> >
> >>>> But in the MGA (or Olympia) we are asked to consider a device which
> is a conscious AI and then we are led to suppose a radically broken version
> of it works even though it is reduced to playing back a record of its
> processes. I think the playback of the record fails to produce
> consciousness because it is not counterfactually correct and hence is not
> actually realizing the states of the AI - those states essentially include
> that some branches were not taken. Maudlin's invention of Klara is intended
> to overcome this objection and provide a counterfactually correct but
> physically inert sequence of states. But I think it Maudlin underestimates
> the problem of context and the additions necessary for counterfactual
> correctness will extend far beyond "the brain" and entail a "world". These
> additions come for free when we say "Yes" to the doctor replacing part of
> our brain because the rest of the world that gave us context is still
> there. The doctor doesn't remove it.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> In the "yes doctor" scenario as reported by Russell, it talks only
> about replacing your brain with an AI program on a computer. It does not
> mention connecting this to sense organs capable of reproducing all the
> inputs one normally gets from the world. If this is not clearly specified,
> I would certainly say 'No' to the doctor. There is little point or future
> in being a functioning brain without external inputs. As I recall sensory
> deprivation experiments, subjects rapidly subside into a meaningless cycle
> of states -- or go mad -- in the absence of sensory stimulation.
> >>
> >>
> >> The question as posed by Bruno, is whether you will say yes to the
> doctor replacing part of your brain with a digital device that has the
> connections to the rest of your brain/body and which implements the same
> input/output function for those connections. Would that leave your
> consciousness unchanged?
> >
> >
> > OK. If all the connections and inputs remain intact, and the digital
> simulation is accurate, I don't see a problem. But I might object if the
> doctor plans to replace my brain with an abstract computation in Platonia
> -- because I don't know what such a thing might be, and don't believe it
> actually exists absent some physical instantiation.
> >
> > As you see, I believe in physicalism, not in Platonia. And I have not
> yet seen any argument that might lead me to change my mind.
>
> Then as a MGA shows that computations do not supervene in realtime on the
> physical, then as a physicalist you simply have to reject computationalism
> as a theory of mind.
>
> The thing is no one is giving arguments to believe one or another...
> Bruno did only show both assumptions cannot be true at the same time, he
> chose to keep for the sake of the theory and find where that leads and how
> it could solve the mind body problem. Never he asserts computationalism is
> true or that physicalism is false. Feel free to pursue on the possibility
> that physicalism is true (or a complete other theory) to resolve that same
> problem. But if you stay in the physicalist contest you can't use
> computations to explain consciousness and that's what maudlin klara/olympia
> and MGA thought experiments shows.
>
>
> But I don't agree that they show that,
>
But it shows it... the assumption is that consciousness is
created/supported by computations... physical supervenience, is the theory
that says in the end it is supported by corresponding token on matter...
the MGA shows that you have to attribute consciousness to the record by the
tokens correspondance... but the record is not a computation anymore... so
you must abandon one or the other, both cannot be correct. Physicalism say
that all there is in the end *is* the matter, computations are abstract
("fantasy") representation of what is really going on in the matter... but
the computations theory cannot be real in that settings because the record
has a token correspondance, but lacks any counterfactual. Physical
supervenience *alone* doesn't require that counterfactual be preserved (in
the end what's not used is not used in the machine, the machine has no
magic power to know that what is not used at that moment in the computation
is there "existing" or not there (removed)).
Quentin
> or more accurately I think they show that physicalism requires the context
> of a physical world. Bruno will say, with some justification, that
> "physical" isn't defined. But that's because he's a Platonist and assumes
> definitions must be axiomatic. I think ostensive definitions are more
> useful - at least for defining "physical".
>
> Brent
>
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