On Wed, May 13, 2015 at 12:25:06PM +1000, Bruce Kellett wrote: > meekerdb wrote: > > > >Same objection I had to the proposed playback of a recording. > >There is no longer the causal link between the neurons firing, so > >the mere succession of states doesn't constitute a computation nor > >instantiate consciousness. > > Careful Brent! You are introducing a particular magic into the mix > -- causality in your case. For Bruno, the magic is a particular type > of computation. Both of these 'escapes' are essentially dualist > explanations of consciousness. >
Actually, these comments reminded me of a problem I had with the Einstein brain made out of Chinese people example that we discussed a few years back. It has been assumed all along that replaying the recording is physically identical to the original physical process that gave rise to the recording. Actually, it is not. In the original case, the physical states follow as the system follows physical dynamic law - there is a causal relationship between states and their successors. In the latter case, some additional machinery has been added in order to interpret the recording, and rearrange the matter so that it follows the original sequence of states. Take away this additional machinery, and the sequence of states grinds to a halt, so one cannot just eliminate it. Physically, this additional machinery changes things quite a bit, so the application of physical supervenience is actually invalid. I saw it with the Chinese Einstein brain, because there was quite clearly this additional physical process involving letters being dispatched from Beijing, but the formulation in the MGA and Maudlin does obscure this aspect. Cheers -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Principal, High Performance Coders Visiting Professor of Mathematics hpco...@hpcoders.com.au 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
