On 9 May 2015 at 09:02, meekerdb <[email protected]> wrote: > On 5/8/2015 1:33 AM, LizR wrote: > > On 8 May 2015 at 18:37, meekerdb <[email protected]> wrote: > >> On 07 May 2015, at 14:45, Bruce Kellett wrote: >> >>> >>> We can use an original biological brain, or an equivalent digital >>>> replacement -- it does not make any significant difference to the argument. >>>> The first point is that in some conscious experience, be it a dream or >>>> anything else, there might be a portion of the 'brain' (in quotes because >>>> it can be biological or digital) that is not activated, so this can be >>>> removed without affecting the conscious experience. >>>> >>> >> This idea of removing unused parts of brain so only "active" elements >> remain, seems problematic to me and not just because of counterfactual >> correctness. The ability to do this is implicit in the assumption that the >> physics of the brain is classical. > > > But comp is based on the assumption that consciousness is the result of > classical computation. If that assumption's wrong then comp fails, of > course, from step 0 - no need to worry about the MGA. > > Bruno points out that a classical computer can compute anything that a > quantum computer can so it doesn't exactly fail; what I think it implies > that the classical computation must include the "environemnt", i.e. all the > extra physical degrees of freedom and entanglement that make the brain > computation (approximately) classical. >
That sounds like putting the cart before the horse. The question is, can the brain and environment be extracted from the assumption that consciousness is classical computation? Which is, of course, still an open question. Plus, assuming no quantum entanglement with the environment is involved in consciousness (as seems likely given the decoherence times of neurons etc) the brain could in theory be isolated at the point where the external stimuli are converted to nerve impulses - we don't interact with the environment directly. It's very dark and quiet in our bone caves, with shadowy messages coming and going that we believe indicate the existence of an outside world... -- 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.
