On 27 Oct 2015, at 02:15, Bruce Kellett 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.
That is a creationist argument.
It is also a God-of-the-gap non valid argument if that is presented
against computationalism (or again its consequences).
Bruno
Bruce
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