On 8 May 2015 at 10:35, Russell Standish <[email protected]> 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. There is an analogy with the Chinese Room argument, but this is the wrong one. The analogy is that the Chinese Room is conscious *despite* its bizarreness and improbability leading to the intuition that it cannot possibly be so. > 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. The UD producing consciousness on any computer it might conceivably be run on is astronomically improbable. -- Stathis Papaioannou -- 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.
