On 03 Aug 2016, at 07:16, Bruce Kellett wrote:
On 3/08/2016 2:55 am, Bruno Marchal wrote:
On 02 Aug 2016, at 14:40, Bruce Kellett wrote:
On 2/08/2016 3:07 am, Bruno Marchal wrote:
On 01 Aug 2016, at 09:04, Bruce Kellett wrote:
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.
Dissociating consciousness from any actual single brain is what
UDA explains in detail. Then the math shows that this
dissociation run even deeper, as your 1p consciousness is
associated with the infinitely many relative and faithful (at the
correct substitution level or below) state in the (sigma_1)
arithmetical relations.
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).
Not at all, but it might look like that at that stage, but what
you say does not follow from computationalism. The same
consciousness present at both place before the door is open
*only* differentiated when they get the different bit of
information W or M.
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.
It is irrelevant to decide how many consciousness or first person
there is. We need only to listen to those which have
differentiated to extract the statistics.
The point that I am trying to make here is that a person's
consciousness at any moment can consist of many independent
threads. From this I speculate that some of these separate threads
could actually be associated with separate physical bodies. In
other words, it is conceivable that a duplication experiment would
not result in two separate consciousnesses, but a single
consciousness in separate bodies. If this is so, the fact that the
separate bodies receive different inputs does not necessarily mean
that they differentiate into separate conscious beings, any more
than the fact that I receive different inputs from moment to
moment means that I dissociate into multiple consciousnesses.
It seems that the only reason that one might expect that the
different inputs experienced by the separate duplicates would lead
to a differentiation of the consciousnesses -- i.e., two separate
and distinct conscious beings -- is that one is implicitly making
the physicalist assumption that a single consciousness is
necessarily associated with a single body, such that separate
physical bodies necessarily have separate consciousnesses.
I suggest that for step 3 to go through, you need to demonstrate
that computationalism requires that a single consciousness cannot
inhabit two or more separate physical bodies: without such a
demonstration you cannot conclude that W&M is not a possible
outcome that the duplicated person could experience. You must
demonstrate that different inputs lead to a differentiation of the
consciousnesses in the duplication case, while not so
differentiating the consciousness of a single person. The required
demonstration must be based on the assumptions of computationalism
alone, you cannot rely on physics that is not yet in evidence.
In other words, start from your basic assumptions:
(1) The "yes doctor" hypothesis;
(2) The Church-Turing thesis; and
(3) Arithmetical realism;
(3) is redundant. There is no (2) without (3).
Yes there is. Arithmetical realism, as you use the term, is
different from the ability to calculate.
No. I define arithmetical realism by the belief in elementary
arithmetic.
I have even redefined an Arithmetical Realist by someone who does not
complain to the director of its children's school when they learn
arithmetic. There is no "metaphysic assumption" here. I use arithmetic
like all theoretical physicists use it.
You can believe that 2+2=4 is true without commiting to the actual
existence of entities corresponding to '2', '4', etc.
Do you have a problem with predicate logic? I guess no, as you would
have told this before.
I use the common inference rule: P(n) ===> ExP(x),
so from s(0) + s(0) = s(s(0)), I can derive Ex(x+s(0) = s(s(0)))
and demonstrate that consciousness is limited to a single physical
brain. Not that consciousness can be associated with a physical
brain; but that the one consciousness cannot inhabit two
identical, but physically separated brains.
?
Computationalism refutes that claim immediately. Take the WM-
duplication experience, maybe the virtual case to make the
reconstitution box as much numerically identical than the copies of
the body (at the relevant digital level). Or just suppose the atom
in the reconstitution box does not distinguish the first person
experiences. In such a case, after the guy pushed on the button in
Helsinki, he will find itself with once consciousness, emulated in
two places at once. So one consciousness inhabits two physical
separated brains, and as I explained you in my preceding posts, the
understanding of this is part of the understanding of the FPI (step
3) and the sequel. Eventually, one consciousness is emulated in
infinitely many different numerical relations in arithmetic, and
the bodies appearances will emerge from that.
You asked me something impossible, contradicting comp immediately,
and which would be a problem for the sequel of the reasoning. It is
a bit weird.
It is a bit weird that you do not understand the point I am making.
What I ask is entirely reasonable.
I just proved in my last post to you that it is impossible.
You use the assumption that the duplicated consciousnesses
automatically differentiate when receiving different inputs.
It is not an assumption. Up to step 3, I use only the notion of first
person, and it is defined by the content of the diary that the person
doing the duplication transported with him/herself.
Once the copies open the door, the diaries differentiate. One diary
contains H-W, the other contains H-M.
I ask you to justify that assumption without appealing to
physicalist notions such as mind-body identity.
Well, I show that computationalism (like Everett by the way) violates
the mind-brain identity thesis. So I don't use it at all, except in
the "yes dorctor" sense of the comp hypothesis.
No physical assumption are made, except local one for pedagogical
purpose, and they will be eliminated later. Indeed it is the main
object of the proof (+ some use of Occam, as always in applied science).
I think I am beginning to see what you mean when you say that
everything you say assumes computationalism. By 'computationalism'
you do not mean the three basic assumptions listed above --
rather, you mean the end point of the argument, including the
arithmetic-physics reversal.
Of course not.
Please let us go step by step. tell me if you are OK with Clarks
answer to the question 1, and what you think about question 2. Then we
can proceed.
Your argument then goes something like this: we have assumed
computationalism is true, namely that the endpoint of the argument
for my (Bruno's) theory is true. From this it follows that all the
steps taken to reach that conclusion must also be valid/true, so one
cannot criticize the conclusion by undermining any of the
intermediate steps because they are true by assumption.
Please read the argument.
That is a neat trick if you can get away with it, but all it means
is that your arguments are irreducibly and irredeemably circular.
Reductio ad absurdum (assume the conclusion and from that deduce a
contradiction) is not the only way that one can show a purported
proof to be invalid: all that it takes for the whole edifice to
collapse is that one shows that just one step in the proof is invalid.
As I understand the structure of your argument, you claim that the
UDA -- in arithmetic -- involves an infinity of computations that
pass through your conscious state.
UD ≠ UDA.
You then want to use this to show that physics can be derived from
arithmetic by looking at the statistics of all these computations
and selecting out a consistent set -- which would, it is claimed,
correspond to the physics we observe. An essential ingredient of
this final phase of the argument is FPI, which is why the early
steps of your deductive argument aim to establish the FPI from more
elementary considerations.
But you have not succeeded in doing this because an essential
element of the FPI in step 3 is that consciousnesses in separate
bodies differentiate on different inputs.
See above.
The only way in which this could happen is if consciousness is
localized to a particular physical body.
Why ?
(You acknowledge the truth of this when you say that for one
consciousness to inhabit more than one body would require telepathy
or "spooky action at a distance".) But the physics required to
establish this is not available until you have recovered physics
from arithmetic at step 8.
Physics is no more required than a bit of biology, but not at the
primary level.
You cannot call upon the results of physics to establish that
physics is derivative and not fundamental
Why not? The whole enterprise would be senseless if I did not believe
in some physical reality. Computationalism would be senseless.
But what is not assumed is that physical primary assumption are
necessary. Any computation in arithmetic would work as well, but would
be unpedagogical.
(unless via a reductio argument, but step 3 is not a reductio)
Indeed. Just tell me if you are OK with John Clarks' answer. And then
if you agree with the principle exposed in the question 2.
As John Clark seems uninterested in the reasoning, and failed to
answer my "QUESTION 1", I take the opportunity to ask you, given
that you seem to misunderstand the FPI.
You are told, in the WM duplication protocol, that both copies will
have a cup of coffee after the reconstitution. Are you OK that
P("experience of drinking coffee") = 1? (assuming digital
mechanism and of course all default hypotheses). Do you think the
guy in Helsinki was wrong when he said, in Helsinki, to expect to
drink some coffee soon?
What possible relevance has that to the points that I am making?
It is sub-step for helping to get the step 3, and thus the local FPI.
The global FPI, which is needed for the rversal will be given in step 7.
Bruno
Bruce
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