On Fri, May 08, 2015 at 08:33:43PM +1200, 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. >
But Brent's qualms are just that removing the inactive parts (thus making the computation noncounterfactual, and potentially destroying the comp supervenience) also actually change the physical quantum state, so may also be destroying the physical supervenience. Hence invalidating the distinction between computational and physical supervenience. ISTM, the MGA works in a purely classical physical reality (such as the non-robust case), but not a quantum one (which is a robust case). This is not a problem for Bruno's argument, but it must be clear that the MGA is _only_ relevant for the non-robust case. -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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.
