On 16 May 2015, at 07:10, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
On 13 May 2015, at 11:59 am, Jason Resch <[email protected]> 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?
So Jason, are you still convinced that the random neurons would not
be conscious? If you are, you are putting the cart before the horse.
The fading qualia argument makes the case that any process
preserving function also preserves consciousness. Any process; that
computations are one such process is fortuitous.
But the random neurons does not preserve function, nor do the "movie".
OK?
That is why we eventually abandon the supervenience thesis. But then,
keeping the comp assumption, the computations are no more fortuitous,
and it is the (physical or not) relatively particular implementations
which are fortuitous (except we have to recover them, so there are not
that much fortuitous, but still emerging for logical reason).
What I mean is that "preserving function" is ambiguous, without
specifying the level of the substitution and the nature of the
substitution. Keep in mind that all holes in the pellicle of the MGA
movie preserve the function, and in that case, abstracting from the
computation, it will make someone having a precise conscious
experience on the empty movie, which is absurd.
Bruno
--
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.
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
--
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.
