meekerdb wrote:
On 5/25/2015 5:54 PM, Bruce Kellett wrote:
Bruno Marchal wrote:
On 25 May 2015, at 08:58, Bruce Kellett wrote:
Part of my problem is that the UD does not execute any actual
program sequentially: after each step in a program it executes the
next step of the next program and so on, until it reaches the first
step of some program, at which point it loops back to the start.
The UD does execute sequentially *each* specific program, but the UD
adds delays, due to its dovetailing duties, which we already know
(step 2) that it does not change the first person experience of the
entiuty supported by that execution.
So if the conscious moment is evinced by a logical sequence of steps
by the dovetailer, it does not correspond to any particular program,
but a rather arbitrary assortment of steps from many programs.
?
Each execution of the programs is well individuated in the UD*. You
can descrbied them by sequences
phi_i^k(j) k = 0, 1, 2, ... (with i and j fixed).
But each step of the dovetailer is just a single application of the
axioms of the Turing machine in question: one of the
Kxy gives x,
Sxyz gives xz(yz),
for example. These single steps are all that there is in the
dovetailer. But such steps lack a context -- they make no sense on
their own. You could simply claim that the two basic steps are all
that is needed -- consciousness self-assembles by taking as many of
these in whatever order is needed.
If the next step of program phi_i is some 10^50 or so dovetailer steps
away, the only thing that could possibly link these is the program
phi_i itself -- the actual execution of the steps is entirely
secondary. In which case, one would say that consciousness resides in
the program phi_i itself - execution on the dovetailer is not
required. I do not think you would want to go down this path, so you
need something to give each step a context, something to link the
separate steps that are required for consciousness.
The teleportation arguments of Steps 1-7 are insufficient for this,
since in that argument you are teleporting complete conscious
entities, not just single steps of the underlying program.
Of course, given that all programs are executed, this sequence of
steps does correspond to some program, somewhere, but not
necessarily any of the ones partially executed for generating that
conscious moment.
Yes. So what?
I was trying to give you a way out of the problems that I have raised
above. If you don't see that the sequential steps of the actual
dovetailer program give the required connectivity, then what does? You
did, some time ago, claim that the dovetailer steps gave an effective
time parameter for the system. But even that requires a contextual
link between the steps -- something that would be given by the
underlying stepping -- which is not the stepping of each individual
program phi_i.
I think what it boils down to is that steps in phi_{i}, where {i} is a
set indexing programs supporting a particular consciousness, must be
linked by representing consciousness of the same thing, the same
thought. But I think that requires some outside reference whereby they
can be about the same thing. So it is not enough to just link the
phi_{i} of the single consciousness, they must also be linked to an
environment. I think this part of what Pierz is saying. He says the
linkage cannot merge different physics, so effectively the thread of
computations instantiating Bruce's consciousness imply the computation
of a whole world (with physics) for Bruce's consciousness to exist in.
My original question here concerned the connectivity in Platonia for the
computational steps of an individual consciousness. But I do agree that
we have to go beyond this because consciousness is conscious of
*something*, viz., an external world, so that has to be part of the
computation -- so that when I hit you hard on the head, your self in
Platonia loses consciousness. There is endless connectivity between the
self and the world external to the self -- and this covers all space and
time, because my consciousness can be changed by a CMB photon. Hence my
thinking that the whole universe (multiverse) may well have to be
included in the same connected simulation in Platonia.
Bruno does not seem to have thought along these lines.
Bruce
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