On 30/07/2016 6:37 pm, Bruno Marchal wrote:
On 29 Jul 2016, at 03:55, Bruce Kellett wrote:
Consequently, if 'you' are duplicated in complete detail, then you
have nothing more than yet another computation that passes through
your conscious state, so there can be only one consciousness!
Exact. A point on which I insisted right at the beginning, and on
which John Clark agrees.
The fact that these duplicates might see different cities becomes
irrelevant because other computations that pass through my current
conscious state might correspond to computations relevant to other
cities, universes, or whatever
OK. But we are at step 3, which uses a simple ideal protocol, where
only two computations involved, the HW one and the HM one.
But you are making a physicalist assumption -- viz., one body/brain, one
consciousness, so duplicating the body/brain produces two separate
consciousnesses.
(physics is only the 'statistics' over such multiple computations).
That is what we are proving, and belongs to step 7 (and 8 pour the
immaterial/arithmetical computations)..
After the duplication, there is still only one consciousness, albeit
in a divided body.
Here we talk about first person experience, so consciousness is
distinguished by its content.
Is it necessary that one consciousness has only one content?
So the one consciousness does see both cities at once. This
possibility cannot be ruled out /a priori/ -- that might in fact be
the result of such a duplication experiment.
Then there is only one person, even now (I am Bruce Kellet, in that
case). That can be true, but is irrelevant for the prediction and
physics recovering, unless you mean that such a consciousness do see
*in the first person sense* both cities, but in that case you
introduce spooky action at a distance, or some telepathic ability,
which, in our protocol is impossible (as we assume computationalism
and the correctness of the choice of the substitution level).
I do not think that any "spooky action at a distance" is necessary. To
think that it is necessary for one consciousness to inhabit two distinct
bodies is to make a physicalist assumption -- namely, to identify
consciousness with the activity and content of a single brain. If we
drop that assumption, consciousness, /per se/, is not tied to a single
location -- it could be in several places (or times) at once without the
need for any physical connection (that is what non-locality is all about).
Consider ordinary consequences of introspection: I can be conscious of
several unrelated things at once. I can be driving my car, conscious of
the road and traffic conditions (and responding to them appropriately),
while at the same time carrying on an intelligent conversation with my
wife, thinking about what I will make for dinner, and, in the back of my
mind thinking about a philosophical email exchange. These, and many
other things, can be present to my conscious mind at the same time. I
can bring any one of these things to the forefront of my mind at will,
but processing of the separate streams goes on all the time.
Given this, it is quite easy to imagine that a subset of these
simultaneous streams of consciousness might be associated with myself in
a different body -- in a different place at a different time. I would be
aware of things happening to the other body in real time in my own
consciousness -- because they would, in fact, be happening to me.
If you dissociate consciousness from an actual single brain, then these
things are quite conceivable. Duplication experiments would then be a
real test of the hypothesis that consciousness could be separated from
the physical brain. If the duplicates are essentially separate conscious
beings, unaware of the thoughts and happenings of the other, then
consciousness is tied to a particular physical brain (or brain
substitute). However, if consciousness is actually an abstract
computation that is tied to a physical brain only in a statistical
sense, then we should expect that the single consciousness could inhabit
several bodies simultaneously.
I think this is a question that can only be resolved empirically --
produce a person duplicating machine and see what happens!
We assume computationalism, so the issue is resolved by elementary
simple reasoning. It is the same as duplicating a program, and yu
would need to assume that computationalism is false to get one
consciousness aware of the two cities.
I do not assume computationalism. I am exploring the consequences of
computationalism to see if it might possible have something to offer to
the science of consciousness. In other words, I entertain the
possibility that computationalism might be false.
But when the guy is reconstituted in W (resp. M), he is the same
program than he was in Helsinki, and that program has only access to
what he finds in W (resp. M).
The program might access only the data available in a particular
situation, but consciousness might reside in the program itself,
regardless of the particular data being processed. That certainly seems
to be the case for me -- I am the same conscious being whether I am
processing emails, or driving my car, and so on. So the same
consciousness can readily process different data at the same time.
Computationalism must entail that running the same computation twice
necessarily produces (numerically) the same consciousness, so,
despite what Bruno claims, entirely faithful duplication of a person
does not produce another consciousness (or another 1-view from the 3p
perspective),
I challenge you to find a post where I disagree with this. "Despite
Bruno claims" shows that you don't read the posts.
You say that the M-guy is different from the W-guy because he has
different data. You deny that these, although they both descend from the
H-guy, are identical to either the H-guy or each other, so they are
separate consciousnesses -- else they could not have different 1-views.
it merely increases the chances that the one consciousness survives
in an uncertain world.
It increases the chance that I will not find myself in W (resp M), or
in M (resp W). Yes, that is the FPI.
Finding yourself in both W&M is clearly a possible outcome of the
duplication experiment. There is nothing logically impossible in this --
unless you assume physicalism and tie consciousness totally to a
physical brain.
Bruce
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