That's part of my argument with Bruno concerning the environment. He
agrees that the simulation of one's brain would have to include at
least a local part of the environment, but he sees this as mere small
expansion in the scope of the simulation which must also be
computable. Cleland seems to take the other extreme that a conscious
program is necessarily interactive and what it interacts with is
uncomputable (although what we know is that it's not practical to
compute it).
Brent
On 5/5/2019 4:40 PM, [email protected] wrote:
I don't have answers to any of these questions, but I do know this:
THE CHURCH-TURING THESIS IS ONE OF THE MOST USELESS IDEAS EVER
INVENTED.
Is the church-Turing thesis true?
Carol E. Cleland
https://philpapers.org/rec/CLEITC [1]
The Church-Turing thesis makes a bold claim about the theoretical
limits to computation. It is based upon independent analyses of the
general notion of an effective procedure proposed by Alan Turing and
Alonzo Church in the 1930''s. As originally construed, the thesis
applied only to the number theoretic functions; it amounted to the
claim that there were no number theoretic functions which couldn't
be computed by a Turing machine but could be computed by means of
some other kind of effective procedure. Since that time, however,
other interpretations of the thesis have appeared in the literature.
In this paper I identify three domains of application which have
been claimed for the thesis: (1) the number theoretic functions; (2)
all functions; (3) mental and/or physical phenomena. Subsequently, I
provide an analysis of our intuitive concept of a procedure which,
unlike Turing''s, is based upon ordinary, everyday procedures such
as recipes, directions and methods; I call them mundane procedures.
I argue that mundane procedures can be said to be effective in the
same sense in which Turing machine procedures can be said to be
effective. I also argue that mundane procedures differ from Turing
machine procedures in a fundamental way, viz., the former, but not
the latter, generate causal processes. I apply my analysis to all
three of the above mentioned interpretations of the Church-Turing
thesis, arguing that the thesis is (i) clearly false under
interpretation (3), (ii) false in at least some possible worlds
(perhaps even in the actual world) under interpretation (2), and
(iii) very much open to question under interpretation (1)
cf http://www.cse.uconn.edu/~dgoldin/papers/strong-cct.pdf [2]
etc.
@philipthrift
On Sunday, May 5, 2019 at 5:49:22 PM UTC-5, Jason wrote:
How do we know other humans are conscious (we don't, we can only
suspect it).
Why do we suspect other humans are conscious (due to their outwardly
visible behaviors).
Due to the Church-Turing thesis, we know an appropriately programmed
computer can replicate any finitely describable behavior. Therefore
a person with an appropriately programmed computer, placed in
someone's skill, and wired into the nervous system of a human could
perfectly mimic the behaviors, speech patterns, thoughts, skills, of
any person you have ever met.
Do you dispute any of the above? If you encountered a close friend
who had to get a computer replacement for his brain (e.g. due to an
inoperable tumor), and this friend displayed perfect mimicry of the
behavior prior to the surgery, would you continue to tell him he his
not conscious, despite his protestations that he is every bit as
conscious as before? On what basis would this your claim rest?
Jason
On Sun, May 5, 2019 at 1:33 PM <[email protected]> wrote:
Re: "only certain kinds of matter can be conscious" and "all
matter is conscious"
I do think the first (human brains at least, and perhaps some
non-human brains, from primates to down* the "food-chain").
Some think there was no fully or cognitively conscious (only a
sensory conscious) human before language. There may be something to
that.
But not the second (where there is self and self-awareness). ROCKS
ARE NOT CONSCIOUS. But the idea is that all matter does have some
level of ELEMENTARY PROTOCONSCIOUSNESS in various types, phases,
and configurations of matter. When some matter is combined into
certain configurations (like a human brain), these PROTOPSYCHICAL
PARTS are fused into something conscious.
* Do Insects Have Consciousness and Ego?
_The brains of insects are similar to a structure in human brains,
which could show a rudimentary form of consciousness_
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/do-insects-have-consciousness-ego-180958824/
[3]
I don't think that societies are conscious, the Earth is conscious,
the universe is conscious.
The Earth is aware of itself? I don't think so.
@philipthrift
On Sunday, May 5, 2019 at 8:25:26 AM UTC-5, Terren Suydam wrote:
You keep trotting out the term "cybernetic delusion" as if it's a
problem. But it's just an assumption I make, that consciousness is
identified with cybernetic dynamics. I'm exploring the consequences
of that idea, which are compelling IMO.
You or anyone else can feel free to adopt or not adopt that
assumption. But it's not a delusion. Calling it that suggests
there's a more correct way to view consciousness. But you haven't
been clear about what that is, vacillating between "only certain
kinds of matter can be conscious" and "all matter is conscious". If
you adopt panpsychism, you fall prey to the cybernetic delusion
yourself. And when you don't, _you fail to explain what privileges
certain kinds of matter over others_. It seems pretty clear to me
that there's no principled way to do that... any explanation of why
brains can be conscious but not computers starts to sound
suspiciously like "spirit" and "soul", in the sense that you're
invoking some property of matter that cannot be detected.
Terren
On Sun, May 5, 2019 at 4:57 AM <[email protected]> wrote:
On Saturday, May 4, 2019 at 8:30:00 PM UTC-5, John Clark wrote:
On Sat, May 4, 2019 at 9:15 PM 'Cosmin Visan'
<[email protected]> wrote:
_> What happens in cases of telepathy is [...]. For example, in
cases of dream telepathy [...] This clearly is a case of dream
telepathy._
OK, there was little doubt before but you just made it official,
Cosmin Visan is a crackpot.
John K Clark
_ _
Telepathy I doubt pretty bigly, but the cybernetic delusion is a
really crackpot idea.
@philipthrift
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