On 08 May 2015, at 22:26, meekerdb wrote:
On 5/8/2015 12:14 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
On 08 May 2015, at 02:35, Russell Standish wrote:
On Fri, May 08, 2015 at 10:19:48AM +1000, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
On 8 May 2015 at 10:14, Russell Standish <li...@hpcoders.com.au>
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.
No, because the chinese room use only the program of the chinese
man, not necessarily a giant look-up table.
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.
MGA is a definite proof that someone keeping comp and physical
supervenience has to invoke non Turing emulable activity in the
brain necessary for consciousness. This is not logically absurd,
but is still *magic" in the comp frame. They could as well invoke
the Virgin Mary when they say "yes" to the doctor.
Or they could invoke the continuum.
A quite special one, different from the continuum implied by the comp
hypothesis.
But I'm interested in Russell's argument that the Chinese Room would
have to be so big as to be absurd. ISTM it's not nearly as big as
the UD. Is there some principle that rules out things that are to
big or to improbable?
Ultrafinitism.
Bruno
Brent
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