Bruno Marchal wrote:
On 06 Apr 2015, at 13:25, Bruce Kellett wrote:
Bruno Marchal wrote:
To be more precise, I should explain you how "computations" and
"emulation" is defined in arithmetic, in term of the truth of
elementary number theoretical relations. A computation will exist
through the fact that it is true that some numbers divide some other
numbers, and other facts like that. On the contrary, a description of
a computation will be a number from which we can extract the
description of a sequence of states, but that is different from the
states existence being the result of a set of true relation.
So you can use these terms in that way. But that does not make
'computation' a dynamical concept.
It is not a physical time related concept. But computer, or universal
number (or universal combinators) needs only a discrete static "time":
0, 1, 2, 3, ..
OK, but that is an ordering parameter and it does not make the
computational dynamical rather than static.
There is no change or movement involved. Arithmetic is completely
static, as are the relations between numbers.
Block universe are static too. It is the point of a relativity theory.
Time and space comes from comparison between clock and meter, nothing
can prevent the sigma_1 reality to emulates all those comparisons , and
by assuming computationalism, of the conscious entities which make sense
of the comparisons.
It is similar to the block universe view in that your internal ordering
parameter is entirely static. But the analogy is not perfect for what
you want to do with comp. The physical block universe is often referred
to in terms of two separate points of view: the 'bird' view which is
from the outside, from which (entirely metaphorical) view, the universe
is static; and the 'frog' view from within, from which view the universe
is dynamical. In this case the bird (block) view is completely
equivalent to a recording of the experiences of the frog in real time.
Because the time parameter is defined internally, the recording can be
run as often as required by the bird, and the result (and conscious
experiences of the frog) are identical every time.
The same thing would happen in the static view of the dovetailer with
states ordered by the step number. The whole shebang would be no
different from a recording of the same shebang -- in fact, it is a
recording because it is static from the external view. The experience of
time by the internal consciousness emulated is exactly the same for
'reruns' of the same portion of the dovetailer's output by some external
'bird' observer.
Now, as I understand it, you want to avoid this conclusion by appealing
to the notion of counterfactual correctness. The particular sequence of
states is not itself conscious because it is not counterfactually
correct -- given a different environment, that sequence of states would
give the same conscious experience, not some modified experience. It is
just a recording, after all.
Your model then appeals to the idea of the infinite number of separate
occasions that that same set of internal states occurs in the overall
picture of the dovetailer, and you claim that, in some sense, the
'actual' conscious experience is a 'sum' over these separate emulations,
even though they be separated by many billions of computational steps of
the dovetailer. I put words like 'actual' and 'sum' in scare quotes
because I do not think these ideas make much sense.
You appeal to techniques like the Feynman sum over paths in QM to make
sense of your model. But that analogy fails because the Feynman sum is
merely a calculational technique -- it does not correspond to and actual
sum of separate really existing things that nature somehow 'performs' to
get a particle from A to B. It is a calculational heuristic, and like so
much in quantum mechanics, reifying computational tricks leads to
endless problems. For example, the Feynman diagrams as used in field
theory are terms in a perturbation expansion, they do not have separate
independent existence. It is only the sum that is physical, and that
same result can be obtained by many other calculational techniques that
never mention Feynman diagrams.
One problem that occurs to me is: "who does this sum over dovetailer
states?" FPI would suggest that there is no such sum. The future of the
'person' experiencing that conscious moment is indeterminate -- the
person cannot predict the future in anything other than a probabilistic
way. But that makes each conscious moment unique, and actually a static
recording of itself -- just as in the block universe view of physics.
Again, FPI of the dovetailer has nothing in common with indeterminacy in
quantum mechanics. Mere external similarity does not imply equivalence.
Bruce
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