On 10-06-2020 22:01, 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List wrote:
On 6/10/2020 7:07 AM, smitra wrote:
I think it can be tested indirectly, because generic computational
theories of consciousness imply a multiverse. If my consciousness is
the result if a computation then because on the one hand any such
computation necessarily involves a vast number of elementary bits and
on he other hand whatever I'm conscious of is describable using only a
handful of bits, the mapping between computational states and states
of consciousness is N to 1 where N is astronomically large. So, the
laws of physics we already know about must be effective laws where the
statistical effects due to a self-localization uncertainty is already
build into it.
That seems to be pulled out of the air. First, some of the laws of
physics are not statistical, e.g. those based on symmetries. They are
more easily explained as desiderata, i.e. we want our laws of physics
to be independent of location and direction and time of day. And N >>
conscious information simply says there is a lot of physical reality
of which we are not aware. It doesn't say that what we have picked
out as laws are statistical, only that they are not complete...which
any physicist would admit...and as far as we know they include
inherent randomness. To insist that this randomness is statistical is
just postulating multiple worlds to avoid randomness.
Yes, the way we do physics assumes QM and statistical effects are due to
the rules of QM. But in a more general multiverse setting where we
consider different laws of physics or different initial conditions, the
notion of single universes with well defined laws becomes ambiguous.
Let's assume that consciousness is in general generated by algorithms
which can be implemented in many different universes with different laws
as well as in different locations within the same universe where the
local environments are similar but not exactly the same. Then the
algorithm plus its local environment evolves in each universe according
to the laws that apply in each universe. But because the conscious agent
cannot locate itself in one or the other universe, one can now also
consider time evolutions involving random jumps from one to the other
universes. And so the whole notion of fixed universes with well defined
laws breaks down.
Bruno has argued on the basis of this to motivate his theory, but this
is a generic feature of any theory that assumes computational theory
of consciousness. In particular, computational theory of consciousness
is incompatible with a single universe theory. So, if you prove that
only a single universe exists, then that disproves the computational
theory of consciousness.
No, see above.
The details here then involve that computations are not well defined
if you refer to a single instant of time, you need to at least appeal
to a sequence of states the system over through. Consciousness cannot
then be located at a single instant, in violating with our own
experience.
I deny that our experience consists of instants without duration or
direction. This is an assumption by computationalists made to simply
their analysis.
Brent
If one needs to appeal to finite time intervals in a single universe
setting, then given that in principle observers only have direct access
to the exact moment they exist, one ends up appealing to another sort of
parallel worlds, one that single universe advocates somehow don't seem
to have problems with.
Saibal
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