On 10/6/2015 3:06 PM, Bruce Kellett wrote:
On 7/10/2015 7:51 am, Brent Meeker wrote:
On 10/6/2015 1:18 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
I'm not sure I understand what you are getting at. I meant that if
the normal sequence of brain states is s1-s2-s3 with corresponding
mental states m1-m2-m3 and s2 is omitted, there is nothing in m3 to
give any indication of the discontinuity. Of course, normally s2 is
necessary in order to generate s1, but that doesn't change the
argument.
But I think that's wrong. Brains are not like ideal von Neumann
computers or Turing machines that have "brain states" corresponding
to "mental states". If you simulated a brain using a computer you
would find that an enormous number of "brain states" were required to
instantiate a single conscious thought and furthermore the brains
states necessary for one thought overlapped with those necessary for
the next thought. So this overlap at the low level is part of the
physical continuity needed for consciousness. The fact that the
physics can be simulated by discrete computation doesn't imply that
the conscious states are discrete.
I think that is an important insight, Brent. One thing that it means
is that two brains can, by chance, be in the same physical state at
one instant, but those two brains might be supporting quite different
thought processes. The consequence is that there is one person per
brain -- the same person can't be spread over several brains.
Kind of depends on what you mean by "one person". In one sense I'm the
same person as yesterday, but my brain now (and my thoughts) are
different from what they were yesterday. If AI is possible, and I
think it is, then we might be able to have two different AI's operating
as exact or very close instances of the same "person" and thinking
essentially the same thoughts for some period of time. Are they the
same person while they are in synchrony thinking the same thoughts?
Seems to me it's just like two clocks keeping the same time. Yes, the
time is the same but they are still two clocks. Bruno comes to a
different conclusion because he thinks he's proved that the physical
world is just an inference from streams of consciousness which are
(abstract) computations.
Brent
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