On 10/28/2015 11:55 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
On 29 Oct 2015, at 2:12 PM, Brent Meeker <meeke...@verizon.net
<mailto:meeke...@verizon.net>> wrote:
On 10/28/2015 2:14 AM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
On 28 Oct 2015, at 9:28 AM, Brent Meeker <meeke...@verizon.net> wrote:
On 10/27/2015 3:04 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
On 28 Oct 2015, at 1:30 AM, John Clark <johnkcl...@gmail.com> wrote:
On Mon, Oct 26, 2015 at 5:16 PM, Stathis Papaioannou
<stath...@gmail.com> 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.
Or that it is a real world. The problem with saying it's "in" Platonia
is that it adds nothing testable. It's like saying this world is a
dream of the Lotus eater.
Brent
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