On Fri, May 08, 2015 at 10:19:48AM +1000, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > On 8 May 2015 at 10:14, Russell Standish <[email protected]> wrote: > > On Fri, May 08, 2015 at 03:14:42AM +1000, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > >> > >> Why can't playing the equivalent of a recording made de novo (i.e. there > >> was no original) instantiate the conscious moment for the first time? > >> > > > > That is such a fantastically improbable outcome that Harry Potter > > universes are mundane occurrences, and we might as well admit magic into > > our explanations of reality. > > > > Seriously, in that case, all bets are off. Arguments based on > > intuition (such as the MGA) just fail under those circumstances. > > I don't think it is fantastically improbable; in fact, in an infinite > universe it may be certain. And even if it is fantastically > improbable, that does not invalidate the philosophical conclusions. >
Yes it does, if the philosophical conclusions are based on an intuition (which the MGA is). This is why I draw the comparison with the Chinese room. If all the intelligence is encoded in a book, then intuition says that book cannot be conscious. This intuition is undoubtedly right for the sorts of books we're used to. But for a book that is much, much larger than the visible universe (which it would have to be to encode the intelligence needed to answer the questions in Chinese as a lookup table), then I think that intuition is very much doubtful. Consequently, the Chinese Room argument fails. This was Dan Dennett's point, IIRC. The MGA will fail in exactly the same way, in the same circumstance. However, Bruno is quite clear that he doesn't rely on astronomically improbably event ocurring, so this is simply a side issue that needs pinching off. -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Principal, High Performance Coders Visiting Professor of Mathematics [email protected] University of New South Wales http://www.hpcoders.com.au ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
