On 07 Oct 2015, at 23:44, Brent Meeker wrote:
On 10/7/2015 2:30 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
On 8 Oct 2015, at 4:36 AM, Brent Meeker <[email protected]> wrote:
On 10/7/2015 2:14 AM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
On 7 October 2015 at 17:09, Brent Meeker <[email protected]>
wrote:
On 10/6/2015 10:39 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
On 7 October 2015 at 07:51, Brent Meeker <[email protected]>
wrote:
On 10/6/2015 1:18 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
On 6 Oct 2015, at 2:45 PM, Brent Meeker <[email protected]>
wrote:
On 10/5/2015 6:24 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
On 6 Oct 2015, at 11:29 AM, Brent Meeker <[email protected]>
wrote:
On 10/5/2015 5:14 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
From this comment it seems that you have an odd idea of how a
person survives from moment to moment, as if they have a soul
that needs to be transferred from one body to the other. That
isn't how it works. If A1 survives as a later entity A2, it is
necessary and sufficient that A1 and A2 have certain physical
and psychological properties. No spark or soul needs to jump
from A1 to A2, and they neither need to have any matter in
common nor do they need to have any physical continuity, since
these factors have no effect on experience.
I disagree with that last. It's commonly assumed, because with
shut our eyes and imagine scenes and we can compose dialog in
our heads; but I think it is a mistake to think these can happen
independent of some underlying physics - even if it's not
"primitive" physics (whatever that is) which Bruno dismisses.
But lack of physical continuity will not necessarily make a
subjective difference,
even if physics is
needed to instantiate consciousness.
Not necessarily if it is at a very low level, e.g. atoms. But
if it's something noticeable, some difference in hormone
levels, ... it will make a difference in thoughts. If the
thought sequence can different with the things happening at the
physical level of say neurons then it implies that supervenience
is false and the mental and physical can
go their own way (which
is what we call "delusional").
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.
If you simulated a brain on a computer and paused the
computation for a while, would it make any difference to the
consciousness generated?
In an ideal computer, like a Turing machine, probably not. But
that's because the brain would have to be simulated on a much
finer time scale than that of conscious thoughts or
experiences. The brain simulation would have include simulation
of neuronal signals in transit and overlapping other signals with
certain timing.
If the brain is Turing emulable then the emulation can be run on
a general purpose computer, such as the one I am using now,
provided it has enough memory. I can at any point save to disk,
shut down the computer, and come back to it at a later time. What
happens as a result of the interruption? Nothing, I say, unless
you break the supervenience thesis, since the program runs
exactly the same.
Yes, I said "probably not". I qualified it because the implicit
assumption is that conscious thought is supervening on the
computer processes and so you might wonder about what thoughts
occur as registers are read off onto the disk and later as they
are reloaded. Those things are abstracted away in ideal von
Neuman computers, Turing machines and other mathematical
abstractions of computation.
But aside from that, my original point was that mental states m1-
m2-m3 are instantiated by something like brain "states" s1-s2-
s3-....-s2345-s2346-s2347. And there's no sharp demarcation
between m1 and m2 in terms of the brain states.
Wouldn't that be the same for any complex process that is being
simulated?
Except for most complex processes there's no question that the
result can be analyzed and time sliced as well as the computation.
But for consciousness/thoughts/experiences/observer-moments there is
this implicit assumption that they are unanalyzable wholes/unities.
That is not an implicit assumption. It is part of the introspective
data.
Then, that is entirely explained by using the oldest definition of
knowledge (Theatetus) applied on rational belief (provability), as []p
& p cannot be defined or circumscribed by the machine having "[]"
representing its beliefs. It shows also that there are no 3p
description of the knower attached to the machine, vindicating entire
discussion going on since centuries on this subject.
Bruno
Brent
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