RE: Maudlin's argument
Bruno Marchal writes: Le 04-oct.-06, à 14:21, Stathis Papaioannou a écrit : Maudlin's example in his paper is rather complicated. If I could summarise, he states that one of the requirements for a conscious computation is that it not be the trivial case of a recording, a machine that plays out the same physical motion regardless of input. He then proposes a second machine next to one which on its own is just a recording, such that the second machine comes into play and acts on the first machine should inputs be different. The system as a whole now handles counterfactuals. However, should the counterfactuals not actually arise, the second machine just sits there inertly next to the first machine. We would now have to say that when the first machine goes through physical sequence abc on its own, it is just implementing a recording and could not possibly be conscious, while if it goes through the same sequence abc with the second machine sitting inertly next to it it is or could be conscious. This would seem to contravene the supervenience thesis which most computationalists accept: that mental activity supervenes on physical activity, and further that the same physical activity will give rise to the same mental activity. For it seems in the example that physical activity is the same in both cases (since the second machine does nothing), yet in the first case the system cannot be conscious while in the second case it can. This is a nice summary of Maudlin's paper. There are several possible responses to the above argument. One is that computationalism is wrong. Another is that the supervenience thesis is wrong and the mental does not supervene on the physical (but Bruno would say it supervenes on computation as Platonic object). Yet another response is that the idea that a recording cannot be conscious is wrong, and the relationship between physical activity and mental activity can be one-many, allowing that any physical process may implement any computation including any conscious computation. Why? The whole point is that consciousness or even just computation would supervene on *absence of physical activity. This is not on *any* physical activity. I can imagine the quantum vacuum is full of computations, but saying consciousness supervene on no physical activity at all is equivalent, keeping the comp assumption, to associate consciousness on the immaterial/mathematical computations. This shows then why we have to explain the relative appearance of the physical stuff. It is consistent with Maudlin's paper to say consciousness supervenes on no physical activity - i.e. on computation as Platonic object - but it is also consistent to say that it supervenes on a recording, or on any physical activity, and that perhaps if there were no physical universe with at least a single quantum state there would be no consciousness. Admittedly the latter is inelegant compared to the no physical supervenience idea, but I can't quite see how to eliminate it completely. Stathis Papaioannou _ Be one of the first to try Windows Live Mail. http://ideas.live.com/programpage.aspx?versionId=5d21c51a-b161-4314-9b0e-4911fb2b2e6d --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
RE: Maudlin's Demon (Argument)
John, I should have been more precise with the terms copy and emulate. What I was asking is whether a robot which experiences something while it is shovelling coal (this of course assumes that a robot can have experiences) would experience the same thing if it were fed input to all its sensors exactly the same as if it were doing its job normally, such that it was not aware the inputs were in fact a sham. It seems to me that if the answer is no the robot would need to have some mysterious extra-computational knowledge of the world, which I find very difficult to conceptualise if we are talking about a standard digital computer. It is easier to conceptualise that such non-computational effects may be at play in a biological brain, which would then be an argument against computationalism. Stathis Papaioannou Stathis: let me skip the quoted texts and ask a particular question. - Original Message - From: Stathis Papaioannou [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, October 04, 2006 11:41 PM Subject: RE: Maudlin's Demon (Argument) You wrote: Do you believe it is possible to copy a particular consciousness by emulating it, along with sham inputs (i.e. in virtual reality), on a general purpose computer? Or do you believe a coal-shovelling robot could only have the coal-shovelling experience by actually shovelling coal? Stathis Papaioannou - My question is about 'copy' and 'emulate'. Are we considering 'copying' the model and its content (in which case the coal shoveling robot last sentence applies) or do we include the interconnections unlimited in experience, beyond the particular model we talk about? If we go all the way and include all input from the unlimited totality that may 'format' or 'complete' the model-experience, then we re-create the 'real thing' and it is not a copy. If we restrict our copying to the aspect in question (model) then we copy only that aspect and should not draw conclusions on the total. Can we 'emulate' totality? I don't think so. Can we copy the total, unlimited wholeness? I don't think so. What I feel is a restriction to think within a model and draw conclusions from it towards beyond it. Which looks to me like a category-mistake. John Mikes _ Be one of the first to try Windows Live Mail. http://ideas.live.com/programpage.aspx?versionId=5d21c51a-b161-4314-9b0e-4911fb2b2e6d --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
RE: SV: Barbour's mistake: An alternative to a timless Platonia
Lennart Nilsson writes: Only atheist have reason to dislike the consequence of comp. Not because they would be wrong, but because their belief in nature is shown to need an act of faith (and atheists hate the very notion of faith). Bruno That is the most absurd statement so far… Most theists I know would be aghast at the idea that their precious brain could be replaced by a digital computer (they imagine that God in Heaven would not do anything so crass as this). Only atheists and agnostics of my acquaintance will even consider the implications of computationalism, and even most of them either decide that it isn't true or, even if it is true, it's a bad idea. I guess our distant ancestors would have had the same attitude towards the idea that humans would one day drive cars and use computers. Stathis Papaioannou _ Be one of the first to try Windows Live Mail. http://ideas.live.com/programpage.aspx?versionId=5d21c51a-b161-4314-9b0e-4911fb2b2e6d --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: The difference between a 'chair' concept and a 'mathematical concept' ;)
Hi Mark, Le 05-oct.-06, à 20:49, markpeaty a écrit : Bruno, I started to read [the English version of] your discourse on Origin of Physical Laws and Sensations. I will read more later. It is certainly very interesting and thought provoking. It makes me think of 'Reasons and Persons' by Derek Parfitt. His book is very dry in places but mostly very well worth the effort of ploughing through it. Parfit is good. I stop to follow him when he insists that we are token. I paraphrase myself sometimes by the slogan MANY TYPES NO TOKEN. BTW I like very much Hofstadter (mentionned by David) too except that he could have said much more on the universal machine, and he could have make clearer the relation between logic and computer science, and also I would suggest people read an easier (less diluted) introduction to Godel's theorem before embarking on the golden braid ... if only to extract more juice As a non-mathematician I can only argue using my form of 'common sense' plus general knowledge. [En passant - I am happy to see that your French language discourse features a debate between Jean Pierre Changeaux and a mathematician. Changeaux's book 'Neuronal Man' was a major influence in setting me off on my quest to understand the nature of consciousness. He helped me to find a very reasonable understanding which makes a lot of sense of the world. Merci beacoup a JPC. :-] OK, but note that when Alain Connes explained Quantum Mechanics to JPC, JPC concludes QM must be wrong. Actually, even just current empirical tiny quantum computations support Alain Connes and not JPC. I think JPC is really not convincing in l'homme neuronal, he buries all the interesting questions, not only about mind, but above all about matter. In the dialogs with Connes, he is not really listening (imo). I dispute the assumption that we can consider and reify number/s and/or logic apart from its incarnation. There is no need to reify the numbers. You need only to believe that proposition like 571 is a prime number or all natural numbers can be represented by the sum of 4 squares are either true or false independently of you or me. It is like the 'ceteris paribus' so beloved of economists; it is a conceptual tool not a description of the world. I don't think so. Once you accept that the number theoretical truth is independent of you (which I take as a form of humility), then it can be explained quite precisely why numbers (in a third person view-view) are bounded to believe in a physical (third person sharable) reality and in a unnameable first person reality etc. All this is an sufficiently precise way so as to be testable. I am super busy until the end of october. In november I will come back to the roadmap. I continue to read the conversations anyway, and perhaps make short comments. (I should also come back about thinking to do that english version of my thesis but I have not yet solved the interdisciplinar-pedago-diplomatico problems ... :O(. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Maudlin's Demon (Argument)
Le 05-oct.-06, à 13:55, [EMAIL PROTECTED] a écrit : Can we 'emulate' totality? I don't think so. I don't always insist on that but with just the Church thesis part of comp, it can be argued that we can emulate the third person describable totality, and indeed this is what the Universal Dovetailer do. The key thing, but technical (I was beginning to explain Tom and George), is that such an emulation can be shown to destroy any reductionist account of that totality, and still better, make the first person totality (George's first person plenitude perhaps) infinitely bigger (even non computably bigger, even unameable) than the 3 person totality. There is a Skolem-Carroll phenomena: the first person inside view of the 3-totality is infinitely bigger than the 3-totality, like in the Wonderland where a tree can hide a palace ... Can we copy the total, unlimited wholeness? Not really. It is like the quantum states. No clonable, but if known, preparable in many quantities. At this stage it is only an analogy. I don't think so. What I feel is a restriction to think within a model and draw conclusions from it towards beyond it. Mmmh... It is here that logician have made progress the last century, but nobody (except the experts) knows about those progress. Which looks to me like a category-mistake. It looks, but perhaps it isn't. I agree it seems unbelievable, but somehow,we (the machine) can jump outside ourself ... (with some risk, though). Bruno PS Er..., to Markpeaty and other readers of Parfit: I think that his use of the term reductionist is misleading, and due in part to his lack of clearcut distinction between the person points of view. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Maudlin's argument
Le 06-oct.-06, à 13:48, Stathis Papaioannou a écrit : Bruno Marchal writes: Le 04-oct.-06, à 14:21, Stathis Papaioannou a écrit : Maudlin's example in his paper is rather complicated. If I could summarise, he states that one of the requirements for a conscious computation is that it not be the trivial case of a recording, a machine that plays out the same physical motion regardless of input. He then proposes a second machine next to one which on its own is just a recording, such that the second machine comes into play and acts on the first machine should inputs be different. The system as a whole now handles counterfactuals. However, should the counterfactuals not actually arise, the second machine just sits there inertly next to the first machine. We would now have to say that when the first machine goes through physical sequence abc on its own, it is just implementing a recording and could not possibly be conscious, while if it goes through the same sequence abc with the second machine sitting inertly next to it it is or could be conscious. This would seem to contravene the supervenience thesis which most computationalists accept: that mental activity supervenes on physical activity, and further that the same physical activity will give rise to the same mental activity. For it seems in the example that physical activity is the same in both cases (since the second machine does nothing), yet in the first case the system cannot be conscious while in the second case it can. This is a nice summary of Maudlin's paper. There are several possible responses to the above argument. One is that computationalism is wrong. Another is that the supervenience thesis is wrong and the mental does not supervene on the physical (but Bruno would say it supervenes on computation as Platonic object). Yet another response is that the idea that a recording cannot be conscious is wrong, and the relationship between physical activity and mental activity can be one-many, allowing that any physical process may implement any computation including any conscious computation. Why? The whole point is that consciousness or even just computation would supervene on *absence of physical activity. This is not on *any* physical activity. I can imagine the quantum vacuum is full of computations, but saying consciousness supervene on no physical activity at all is equivalent, keeping the comp assumption, to associate consciousness on the immaterial/mathematical computations. This shows then why we have to explain the relative appearance of the physical stuff. It is consistent with Maudlin's paper to say consciousness supervenes on no physical activity - i.e. on computation as Platonic object - I did not have problem with the expression platonic object but be careful because it makes some people believe (cf Peter Jones) that we are reifying numbers and mathematical objects. This would be a mistake only second to Aristotle reification of the notion of matter but it is also consistent to say that it supervenes on a recording, or on any physical activity, and that perhaps if there were no physical universe with at least a single quantum state there would be no consciousness. Admittedly the latter is inelegant compared to the no physical supervenience idea, but I can't quite see how to eliminate it completely. I think you are right, but it seems to me that at that point (still more after the translation of the UDA in arithmetic) to really believe that a recording can have all consciousness experiences would be like to believe that, despite the thermodynamical explanation, cars are still pull by (invisible) horses. In any *applied* math there is an unavoidable use of Ockham razor. The movie graph or Maudlin's Olympia makes it as minimal as possible. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Maudlin's argument
Stathis Papaioannou wrote: Bruno Marchal writes: Le 04-oct.-06, à 14:21, Stathis Papaioannou a écrit : Maudlin's example in his paper is rather complicated. If I could summarise, he states that one of the requirements for a conscious computation is that it not be the trivial case of a recording, a machine that plays out the same physical motion regardless of input. He then proposes a second machine next to one which on its own is just a recording, such that the second machine comes into play and acts on the first machine should inputs be different. The system as a whole now handles counterfactuals. However, should the counterfactuals not actually arise, the second machine just sits there inertly next to the first machine. We would now have to say that when the first machine goes through physical sequence abc on its own, it is just implementing a recording and could not possibly be conscious, while if it goes through the same sequence abc with the second machine sitting inertly next to it it is or could be conscious. This would seem to contravene the supervenience thesis which most computationalists accept: that mental activity supervenes on physical activity, and further that the same physical activity will give rise to the same mental activity. For it seems in the example that physical activity is the same in both cases (since the second machine does nothing), yet in the first case the system cannot be conscious while in the second case it can. This is a nice summary of Maudlin's paper. There are several possible responses to the above argument. One is that computationalism is wrong. Another is that the supervenience thesis is wrong and the mental does not supervene on the physical (but Bruno would say it supervenes on computation as Platonic object). Yet another response is that the idea that a recording cannot be conscious is wrong, and the relationship between physical activity and mental activity can be one-many, allowing that any physical process may implement any computation including any conscious computation. Why? The whole point is that consciousness or even just computation would supervene on *absence of physical activity. This is not on *any* physical activity. I can imagine the quantum vacuum is full of computations, but saying consciousness supervene on no physical activity at all is equivalent, keeping the comp assumption, to associate consciousness on the immaterial/mathematical computations. This shows then why we have to explain the relative appearance of the physical stuff. It is consistent with Maudlin's paper to say consciousness supervenes on no physical activity - i.e. on computation as Platonic object - but it is also consistent to say that it supervenes on a recording, or on any physical activity, and that perhaps if there were no physical universe with at least a single quantum state there would be no consciousness. Admittedly the latter is inelegant compared to the no physical supervenience idea, but I can't quite see how to eliminate it completely. Stathis Papaioannou But note that Maudlin's argument depends on being in a classical world. The quantum world in which we live the counterfactuals are always realized with some probability. Brent Meeker --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
