On 4/30/2017 4:39 AM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
On 26 April 2017 at 09:22, Brent Meeker <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:On 4/25/2017 6:26 AM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:On Sun, 23 Apr 2017 at 5:58 am, John Clark <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: On Sat, Apr 22, 2017 Stathis Papaioannou <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>>wrote: >> Suppose just for the sake of argument that non-physical computations did not exist, how would our physical world be different? There would be no difference. Therefore either non-physical computations do not exist or they do but are utterly unimportant, rather like the l uminiferous aether . > This is equivalent to supposing that mathematical Platonism is false. Not exactly. Einstein didn't prove the luminiferous aether didn't exist in the Platonic sense, he just proved it was unimportant. I suppose you could say in the vague way that Greek philosophers love that correct mathematical calculations exist independently of matter, but the trouble is incorrect mathematical calculations exist too, and the only way to differentiate the correct from the incorrect is by using matter that obeys the laws of physics. And separating the stuff we want from the stuff we don't is important, that's why we say Michelangelo's huge statue of David is 500 years old and not far older even though in the platonic sense David was inside a gigantic block of Carrara marble for 100 million years and all Michelangelo did was unpack it, he just removed the parts of the block that weren't David. But if the statue were conscious and it's consciousness not dependent on interaction with the outside world, it would still be conscious inside the marble block. Any physical object could be viewed as implementing a computation as anything could be mapped onto of a Turing machine, but the "work" of the computation would then be not in the physical object but in the mapping, a Platonic object. The problem with this is that such an implementation cannot interact with its environment, so you cannot, as you say to Bruno, use it to make money hiring out your Platonic computer. But what if we consider conscious computation that does not interact with the environment of its implementation? Like the statue in the block of marble, it would still be conscious even if no-one outside could appreciate it or make money out of it.I think this is specious. Even humans who, as in sensory deprivation tanks, have no interaction with their environment tendto "lose consciousness" in the sense of going into though loops. If a brain were truly, completely isolated from it's environment Ithink it very doubtful that it could remain conscious. And if, like David in the block, had never experienced an environment it would be hard to say what he could be conscious OF. The computation in our brains takes it's "meaning" from our interactions with the world. When we are dreaming we are not aware of the external environment.
That's not true in the broad sense of "aware". Most people will awake instantly if you whisper their name. Dreams often include bits of the environment: the room is cold, there are noises outside,... But my point was more general than that. If you had never experienced the external world, like a newborn infant, your brain would have to learn to conceptualize and your thoughts would take their meaning from the external world and your interaction with it. This is approximately what happens; although a new born is actually given a head start by evolution providing some hardwired concepts. Notice that on Bruno's theory the newborn should already know logic and arithmetic - they are independent of the external (physical) world.
In any case, the effect of sensory deprivation on humans is a contingent fact about human psychology, and I don't think it implies anything about the nature of consciousness in general.
I think it does. It's a bit of evidence supporting the theory that consciousness evolved as part of intelligence in dealing with the external world and any intelligent behaving being will be conscious - i.e. will be able to predict and plan using internal simulations in which the being itself is represented. So consciousness will always be about something.
The question of where computations in our brains get their meaning from is interesting. As we develop, certain brain patterns come to be associated with certain patterns in the environment, and hence acquire meaning. The brain pattern and associated meaning can later be summoned in the absence of the environmental stimulus, as in a thought or a dream. But if the same brain with the same brain patterns were created de novo, say with an advanced 3D printer, would the meaning be absent? I find it difficult to imagine how that could be the case.
It depends on the relation of the brain pattern to the environmental stimulus. "Created de novo" might mean occuring at random with no relation to the referent except accident. If you think that produces consciousness of the referent then you are led to the paradox of the rock that thinks everything. That's why I think there must be an interactive relation between consciousness and its referent. Bruno denies this when he adopt Theaetatus's definition of knowledge as true-belief. He reject Gettier's requirement that to be knowledge there must be a causitive relation between the belief and the thing believed - so just guessing correctly doesn't count as knowledge.
The idea that computationalism implies that consciousness would occur independently of physical activity has been used as an argument against computationalism, on the grounds that it is self-evidently absurd. Hilary Putnam, originator of functionalism (of which computationalism is a subset), later realised this implication and changed his mind. John Searle and Tim Maudlin came to a similar conclusion. But an alternative is, as Bruno suggests, to keep computationalism and accept that the apparent physical world is secondary, not primary. The physical computers sold by Dell or IBM, along with everything else, are made in a virtual reality running on a Platonic computer. While this may at first glance seem absurd, there is no reason I can think of why it cannot be true. And it has advantages in addition to preserving computationalism, such as eliminating the need to explain why there should be a physical universe at all.But it doesn't eliminate the need to explain why there should be a physical universe - rather it speculates that the UD will necessarily produce not only thread of consciouness but also a physics for consciousness to relate to. But that's why I thing the "reversal" is a cheat. The physics is necessary to the consciousness - whatever is "primary".Mathematics is ontologically necessary: God is not needed to create the number 2 and can't get rid of the number 2 even if he is omnipotent. Primary physical existence lacks this quality of ontological necessity.
That's like saying conjunction is ontologically necessary: God is not needed to create "and".
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