On Mon, May 02, 2022 at 08:03:21AM -0400, Jason Resch wrote:
> Hi Russell,
>
> Thanks for sharing. I had read this argument before, I believe in your book,
> and reread it again just now. It is compelling and a quite novel approach to
> the question.
>
> However, I do not see it as bullet proof. For example:
>
> The reasoning could be applied equally as an argument that we are living in a
> computer simulation where simulating minds of higher level organisms is more
> common than simulating simpler creatures, and so common as to outclass simpler
> minds.
Why would this be? The Solomonoff-Levin theorem would indicate simpler
programs would be exponentially more common than more complex ones, so
the same scaling would apply to minds.
>
> It could be used as an argument for Unificationism (the idea that
> instantiating
> same mind more than once does not ascribe more measure to the experience).
> Then
> the power law would reflect unique possible conscious states across reality,
> and human and higher level minds would dominate in that there are more ways
> for
> a human brain to create unique conscious states.
>
Interesting line of attack, but I think it fails due to the
expectation that you should be maximally complex (and probably
maximally old). There's no reason to think that human beings are the
most complex consciousnesses possible in the multiverse.
> It could also be that simple conscious states can jump or shift to equivalent
> conscious states until they stabilize on an experience that is less likely to
> stabilize. For instance, the question is sometimes asked "What is it like to
> be
> a thermostat?" One answer could be that it is like a person waking up in the
> morning. (Where the conscious state of a waking person intersects the state of
> a thermostat, and a thermostat's mind is equivalent to a wide class of many
> minds, it is not really like anything to be a thermostat). I don't know that
> insect consciousness is simple enough for this argument to apply though.
>
> Then there's the question of whether it is correct to divide minds, or whether
> something like universalism is true, which states there is only one mind, and
> all experiences belong to it. Then any experience is one I am 100% likely to
> experience.
>
> I am not sure what to think, but "why are we not ants?" is indeed a mystery
> that calls for an explanation.
>
Indeed. Of course, you are right that the argument is not bullet
proof. But as is typical of doomsday arguments, peoples reactions are
"WTF?", and there's no engagement. On Google Scholar, there is
precisely 1 citation to that paper, and admittedly I haven't read it,
but based on the abstract, I think the citation was just of similar
example of anthropic reasoning, rather than engaging with the argument itself.
Arguments against this argument have to date been unconvincing, just
like the ones against the DA.
Personally, I think it is interesting that we can provide some hard
numbers around the nature of the "hard question", contra John Clark's
assertion that nothing can be said about consciousness.
Cheers
--
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Dr Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile)
Principal, High Performance Coders hpco...@hpcoders.com.au
http://www.hpcoders.com.au
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