On Saturday, February 2, 2019 at 12:48:00 PM UTC-6, Brent wrote: > > > > On 2/1/2019 10:58 PM, Philip Thrift wrote: > > > > On Friday, February 1, 2019 at 1:54:15 PM UTC-6, Brent wrote: >> >> >> >> On 2/1/2019 5:52 AM, Philip Thrift wrote: >> >> In any case, one of the "micropsychists" has a new paper just out: >> >> >> "According to the *fusion* view ... when micro- or protoconscious >> entities come together in the right way, they fuse or 'blend' together to >> form a single unified consciousness. ..." >> >> *Is Consciousness Intrinsic? A Problem for the Integrated Information >> Theory* >> Hedda Hassel Mørch >> Journal of Consciousness Studies 26 (1-2):133-162(30) (2019) >> >> https://philpapers.org/rec/MRCICI >> https://philpapers.org/archive/MRCICI.pdf >> >> *Abstract* >> The Integrated Information Theory of consciousness (IIT) claims that >> consciousness is identical to maximal integrated information, or maximal Φ. >> One objection to IIT is based on what may be called the intrinsicality >> problem: consciousness is an intrinsic property, but maximal Φ is an >> extrinsic property; therefore, they cannot be identical. >> >> >> A more cogent objection is that it attributes lots of consciousness to a >> Vandermonde matrix: >> >> https://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=1799 >> >> Brent >> >> >> > > Scott Aaronson wrote this about 5 years ago. I haven't looked if he has > has anything new. > > Regarding informationism vs. panpsychism, he only addresses the former. > > *I’ve just conjured into my imagination beings whose Φ-values are a > thousand, nay a trillion times larger than humans’, yet who are also > philosophical zombies: entities that there’s nothing that it’s like to be.* > > > That of course panpsychists agree with. > > He procedes: > > *Let S=F_p, where p is some prime sufficiently larger than n, and let V be > an n×n Vandermonde matrix over F_p—that is, a matrix whose (i,j) entry > equals i^(j-1) (mod p). Then let f:S^n→S^n be the update function defined > by f(x)=Vx. * > > Concludes: *the fact that Integrated Information Theory is > wrong—demonstrably wrong, for reasons that go to its core—puts it in > something like the top 2% of all mathematical theories of consciousness > ever proposed.* > > > Now here is where panpsychists diverge from this way of thinking: > Everything Scott wrote above involves ultimately computing with numerical > entities as the "atoms" (so to speak) of what the "computer" is computing > with. What the panpsychists are saying is that it is not numerical entities > (numericals: Ns) at all that are at the base of the computing, but > experiential entities (experientials: Es). *Es are as basic > (ontologically) as Ns*. > > *Defining what Es are* is the fundamental problem for panpsychists (vs. > numerists, or informationists). > > > Yes, Scott's analysis assumes that consciousness is characterized by some > kind of computation...as does Tononi. >
So do I. It's called *experience processing* (vs. information processing). https://codicalist.wordpress.com/2018/10/14/experience-processing/ > But he observes that whatever your theory of consciousness is it needs to > at least roughly agree as to who and what is conscious. A theory that says > a large Vandermonde matrix is conscious fails that test. > > But to introduce experiential atoms is just words. It doesn't explain > anything. Where do your experiential atoms go when you are unconscious? > when you die? How do they interact with non-experiential atoms? Are > experiential atoms necessary for intelligence? > > Brent > All good questions. "Experiential atoms" are sort of " just words" - like "atoms" was just a word to the Atomists of ancient Greece. And then a lot of people ignored them. Hopefully things will go better in this round of history. - pt -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
