On 08 May 2015, at 05:08, Bruce Kellett wrote:
LizR wrote:
To summarise the summary...
Hypothetically, we have some computing machine that generates a
conscious experience. Since computation is deterministic, this will
create the /same/ conscious experience if we re-run it duplicating
the same initial state and inputs. (For example, each run might
give rise to the following report "I awoke and found myself on a
hillside, saw a white rabbit run past, thought it was odd that it
was wearing a waistcoat and carrying a pocket watch, answered my
mobile phone, and now I'm speaking to you.")
Now we remove unused parts of the machinery, and verify that
running it produces the same output. Then we remove arbitrary
amounts of the processing machanism, which we replace with
recordings of their output. Ultimately we remove the entire machine
and play back a recording of the state of every component, and, we
assume, get the same output as we did when the machinery was
performing computations. (We may even turn the recording into a
static film, or a book of instructions, and require that an
external observer brings the consciousness to life through their
actions.)
The question is, what - if anything - does this prove?
Possible answer (it seems to me) include:
1. it shows that consciousness doesn't exist
2. it shows that a recording can be conscious
3. it shows that a recording can /appear/ conscious (but then at
which point in the removal process did the machine stop being
conscious?)
4. it shows that physical supervenience is impossible, and hence
consciousness isn't the result of computation
5. it shows that physical supervenience is impossible, and hence,
if consciousness /is/ the result of computation, it can't be
supported by a physical machine.
Any others I've missed?
I doubt that it actually /shows/ anything, apart from the fact that
intuition is an unreliable guide to scientific truth.
As I sais some time ago, it is an argument from incredulity, and
that is not a valid argument about anything.
All argument in math are from incredulity. Here we are asked to
believe in an incredible, magical, non Turing emulable property of
primary matter (never observed) to select the computation in
arithmetic. The argument is non credible, because it makes the "Yes
Doctor" relying on adding some magic in the picture. You can save any
theory on reality by that type of moves. You must just understand that
the computation are already emulated in arithmetic (which you have
admitted not seeing at all).
It is only a new recent fashion on this list to take seriously that a
recording can be conscious, because for a logician, that error is the
(common) confusion between the finger and the moon, or between "2+2=4"
and 2+2=4.
Bruno
Bruce
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