On Mon, Oct 26, 2015 at 7:37 PM, Bruce Kellett <[email protected]> wrote:
> On 27/10/2015 10:52 am, Jason Resch wrote: > > On Monday, October 26, 2015, Bruce Kellett < <[email protected]> > [email protected]> wrote: > > On 27/10/2015 8:16 am, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > > > > On Tuesday, 27 October 2015, John Clark < <[email protected]> > [email protected]> wrote: > >> > >> > >>> > >>> > > >>> so where does semantic content come from? > >> > >> From examples in the physical world. You can give as many botanical > definitions of the word "tree" as you want but it will just be a word > defined by other words that are themselves defined by yet more words that > are.... If you tried to dig for meaning all you'd find is a endless loop, > it would just be a game where words are manipulated according to the rules > of botany until somebody forgot about definitions and pointed to the ASCII > string "t-r-e-e" and then pointed to a large photosynthesizing organism > made largely of cellulose that exists in the physical world. Then even a > martian would notice a correspondence between this game of manipulating > symbols called "botany" that humans had invented and the way these large > photosynthesizing organism made largely of cellulose live. > > > > What about a virtual world with trees and observers, and no I/O devices > connecting it to outside trees? > > > > I think Brent answered this in his response to Russell. The trees of the > ordinary physical world do not connect with anything outside this world > either in order to have semantic content. A virtual world would be no > different in this respect. The point is that the content comes from > something other formal symbol manipulation -- things such as pointing and > sensory responses. There has to be something other than the consciousness > with which the consciousness can interact. > > I take it you've never played video games. > > Not with any regularity. But I take it that when you play such games, you > interact with the simulated environment via the provided interface -- the > game only interacts with itself in so far as the original programmers > designed it to. The semantic content is provided from outside in either > case. > So what do you think would happen if an AI, or uploaded mind were uploaded into a virtual reality that was fully disconnected from the physical world? Would that mind no longer be conscious? Jason -- 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.
