On 10/27/2015 3:14 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
Sent from my iPhone
On 28 Oct 2015, at 4:49 AM, Brent Meeker <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
On 10/26/2015 11:00 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
On 27 October 2015 at 16:57, Bruce Kellett
<[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
On 27/10/2015 4:50 pm, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
On 27 October 2015 at 14:22, Bruce Kellett
<[email protected]> wrote:
On 27/10/2015 1:13 pm, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
On 27 Oct 2015, at 12:15 PM, Bruce Kellett
<[email protected]> wrote:
On 27/10/2015 12:05 pm, Jason Resch wrote:
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]> wrote:
> On 27/10/2015 8:16 am, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
>
> On Tuesday, 27 October 2015, John Clark
<[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?
Difficult to tell because, by construction, you can't ask
it. But if both the AI and the VR are programmed by some
external intelligence, semantic content might be provided
in that way.
But once programmed, there may be no further evidence of
semantic content. The computer could be fired into space,
and the programmers and their entire civilisation might
die. If aliens find it and somehow work out the syntax,
there is no way for them to work out the meaning behind
it, since there is no intrinsic meaning in circuits
turning on and off. So what is the explanation here: the
meaning is still there because the long-dead programmers
had thought about it in a particular way?
Could be. If the program is no longer running, the meaning
might not be recoverable.
The program is running, but the programmers and their
civilisation are gone. How is the meaning recoverable?
Not by the outsider, certainly. But to the insider......who can
tell? It depends on what the programmers originally built in.
Then that means that there is meaning intrinsic to a certain pattern
of circuits turning on and off.
I take your meaning, but I think that's a misleading way of putting
it. If we are living in The Matrix then everything is patterns of
circuits switching on and off. Whether the is some meaning to that
switching can only be known by the programmer of The Matrix. But as
denizens within The Matrix each of us finds meaning in interaction
with other parts of The Matrix. That meaning is not intrinsic to
the The Matrix, it's intrinsic to each of us as a part of The
Matrix. The subset of patterns that instantiates Brent within The
Matrix "understands" other parts of The Matrix by interacting with them.
OK, but that removes the requirement that a computation must be a
computation relative to the real world,
No, it just points out that "real" is a relative concept.
Brent
which makes it difficult to place limits on what can count as
implementing a computation, which I think leads to the idea that all
computations are necessarily implemented by virtue of their status as
platonic objects.
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