> On 29 Oct 2015, at 2:12 PM, Brent Meeker <[email protected]> wrote: > > > >> On 10/28/2015 2:14 AM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: >> >> >> On 28 Oct 2015, at 9:28 AM, Brent Meeker <[email protected]> wrote: >> >>> >>> >>>> On 10/27/2015 3:04 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: >>>> >>>> On 28 Oct 2015, at 1:30 AM, John Clark <[email protected]> wrote: >>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> On Mon, Oct 26, 2015 at 5:16 PM, Stathis Papaioannou <[email protected]> >>>>> wrote: >>>>> >>>>>>> >> 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? >>>>> >>>>> There would still be I/O devices connected to the virtual trees made >>>>> by a computer that operated according to the laws of physics, if not the >>>>> trees wouldn't even be virtual. And the books on both virtual botany and >>>>> real botany would still be more than a just a symbol manipulation game, >>>>> they would have semantic content because there would be a >>>>> correspondence between the way the symbols are manipulated and the >>>>> way the virtual (or real) large photosynthesizing organism live. >>>>> Regardless of if they are virtual or real if you want to know how trees >>>>> live studying those botany symbols in virtual (or real) books will help, >>>>> so they must have semantic content . >>>> >>>> The requirement that a computation be able to interact with the real world >>>> puts a restriction on what qualifies as a computation. You've challenged >>>> Bruno many times to perform a difficult computation using his Platonic >>>> computer. Well, that computation is occurring in front of you now in the >>>> thermal motion of the atoms in your desk, which under an appropriate >>>> interpretation are implementing a Turing machine. But you and Bruno don't >>>> have that appropriate interpretation, and if you did, you would have the >>>> result of the calculation already. In other words, the thermal motion >>>> computation is not understandable as such in, and cannot interact with, >>>> the world at the level of the substrate of its implementation; so it would >>>> usually be said that either there is no computation being implemented, or >>>> it is being implemented only in a trivial and useless sense. But remove >>>> the requirement for interaction in the real world, and this objection >>>> falls down. The computation is being implemented, your difficult >>>> calculation has been completed, and it is being appreciated by the virtual >>>> observers who are clapping and cheering - even though you can't hear them. >>> >>> That's essentially Bruno's MGA, except it stops one step short. Bruno >>> takes the last step and says even if the atoms of your desk were doing >>> absolutely nothing there is an interpretation in which that is a >>> computation; hence the atoms are superfluous. But clearly then it is the >>> interpretation which is providing the computation. >> >> I agree; if anything at all can be seen as a computation, it is not the >> thing that matters, but the interpretation. >> >> There are two ways to avoid this conclusion. One is to say that >> consciousness is not computable. The other is to say that a computation can >> only be implemented relative to the real world. > > I take the latter. But it doesn't have to be relative the real (i.e. our) > world. There can be a virtual consciousness relative to a virtual > world...but I don't think "virtual" and "real" add anything to this. So when > Bruno answers my criticism that the MG relys on its relation to the world for > its consciousness by saying he can just expand the program to simulate the > world too this doesn't answer my point. The consciousness is still only > relative to a world; whether it's this world or a virtual world.
If the virtual world is at the same level as the consciousness there is nothing to prevent us saying the whole simulation is in Platonia. -- 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.
