On 15 May 2015, at 01:48, Jason Resch wrote:
On Wed, May 13, 2015 at 9:29 AM, Bruno Marchal <marc...@ulb.ac.be>
wrote:
On 13 May 2015, at 03:59, Jason Resch wrote:
Chalmer's fading quailia argument shows that if replacing a
biological neuron with a functionally equivalent silicon neuron
changed conscious perception, then it would lead to an absurdity,
either:
1. quaila fade/change as silicon neurons gradually replace the
biological ones, leading to a case where the quaila are being
completely out of touch with the functional state of the brain.
or
2. the replacement eventually leads to a sudden and complete loss
of all quaila, but this suggests a single neuron, or even a few
molecules of that neuron, when substituted, somehow completely
determine the presence of quaila
His argument is convincing, but what happens when we replace
neurons not with functionally identical ones, but with neurons that
fire according to a RNG. In all but 1 case, the random firings of
the neurons will result in completely different behaviors, but what
about that 1 (immensely rare) case where the random neuron firings
(by chance) equal the firing patterns of the substituted neurons.
In this case, behavior as observed from the outside is identical.
Brain patterns and activity are similar, but according to
computationalism the consciousness is different, or perhaps a
zombie (if all neurons are replaced with random firing neurons).
Presume that the activity of neurons in the visual cortex is
required for visual quaila, and that all neurons in the visual
cortex are replaced with random firing neurons, which by chance,
mimic the behavior of neurons when viewing an apple.
Is this not an example of fading quaila, or quaila desynchronized
from the brain state? Would this person feel that they are blind,
or lack visual quaila, all the while not being able to express
their deficiency? I used to think when Searle argued this exact
same thing would occur when substituted functionally identical
biological neurons with artificial neurons that it was completely
ridiculous, for there would be no room in the functionally
equivalent brain to support thoughts such as "help! I can't see, I
am blind!" for the information content in the brain is identical
when the neurons are functionally identical.
But then how does this reconcile with fading quaila as the result
of substituting randomly firing neurons? The computations are not
the same, so presumably the consciousness is not the same. But
also, the information content does not support knowing/believing/
expressing/thinking something is wrong. If anything, the
information content of this random brain is much less, but it seems
the result is something where the quaila is out of sync with the
global state of the brain. Can anyone else where shed some clarity
on what they think happens, and how to explain it in the rare case
of luckily working randomly firing neurons, when only partial
substitutions of the neurons in a brain is performed?
Nice idea, which leads again to the absurdity to link consciousness
to the right "physical activity", instead of the abstract
computation (at the right level).
So would such person having fading / diminishing qualia?
The person is in platonia (i.e. distributed on infinitely many true
sigma_1 sentences), and survives where it is self-referentially
correct relatively to an infinity of computations.
The person is not in the running of a computer in front of you, which
is part of your (stable) illusion (there is only 0, s(0), s(s(0)), and
their add/plus relations).
The mystery is in the fact that such illusion looks computable, which
would contradict comp (here comp is saved by QM, which show that there
is something non computable but observable.
Only one problem, to use "Chalmers' strategy", you need to change a
neuron one at a time, but then a little change will quickly spread
abnormal behavior in the other neurons (which do not yet fire
randomly). So you have to change all neurons at once, in this case.
It is possible in theory, if you're running a simulated brain, and
indicate at time T some subset of the neurons stop executing their
regular neuron simulation code and instead follow random neuron code.
Let us say that we already know that consciousness is not dependent on
the low level implementation.(Below the substitution level, there is
an infinite of them).
MGA does show that at some level, attributing the consciousness to the
physical activity is like saying that it is not Deep Blue who won the
chess tournament, but Z8000, the processor used (supposedly) that day.
If from one o'clock to five o'clock, your neurons run randomly, but
that by the ultra-incredible chance you get the right physical
activity, well, you, in platonia, are lucky that with some luck, the
rigth determinacy comes back, and if it did, at five o'clock,
obviously you will not mention any fading qualia.
You will ask me, and what if the determinacy never come back, but the
luck continue? Then we have to treat the person like if he was not a
zombie, by definition, as, by luck, it incarnates the right
counterfactuals by definition, just in advance, so to speak. It is
like a very trivial machine still just a body: it never thinks per se,
together with an oracle making it acts like the normal computations
demand. We have to ascribe consciousness to the person, in platonia,
never to its 3p representation relatively to us. It is a confusion
between a person and its mask or clothes.
This might at first mean going from consciousness to 0
consciousness, except that we already know (by MGA, normally) that
consciousness is just not associated to *any* physical activity, not
even computations.
So the vanishingly rare actual computations in math that are random
but behaving like zombies (by luck) have no consciousness and we can
discount them?
None of consciousness. Consciousness, like matter will be in the
infinite sum. The bodies are the "illusion" here.
And there are reason to believe that we are related to some random
oracle, probably allowing the quantum phase to get rid of the white
rabbit, but this needs still some works.
Are there those rare creatures somewhere in Platonia that see while
feeling as though they're blind?
No. At the level I think you are, that would be a contradiction with
comp.
At a different higher level, you might mean all lucid platonist
machines.
As reality is not wysiwig for them, seeing can blind you the real, or
a part of the real.
Bruno
Jason
In fact the people that we can see are sort of p-zombies, in some
sense, but this is because we see only the 3p-body, and the 3-p
bodies are not conscious: they are only "pointer" to the person,
which is in Platonia, and is conscious, in Platonia. (Note that this
mean that we are, in some sense, in Platonia, at the limit of all
computations).
I am aware that this is counter-intuitive, but not much than general
relativity or QM.
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