Re: Physicists Are Philosophers, Too
On Fri, May 22, 2015 meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: The polar ice has been shifting from north to south for decades. The losses and gains essentially balance out. I know, and as far as sea levels are concerned the southern polar ice cap is far more important than the northern one; the northern ice cap is primarily ice over the ocean and melting that has zero effect on sea level; if you don't believe me put some ice cubes in a glass of water and mark the level, then come back a few hours later when the ice has melted and you will see that the level has not changed. On the other hand the southern ice cap is primarily ice sheets over land and melting that would cause a dramatic increase in sea levels, but that's not happening. That's why the sea is rising at the undramatic rate of one inch every 10 years; and that's why on a list of existential threats to the human race climate change is so far down the list. Less ice floating in the arctic sea means new important shipping routes have opened up that were not possible before, not a bad thing. Of course you wouldn't know this if you got your science from Forbes instead of looking at the source. I didn't get that graph from Forbes, I got it from the people who made it, NASA. And I didn't get that figure of the ocean rising at a rate of one inch every 10 years from Forbes either, I got it from the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. John K Clark -- 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 http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Physicists Are Philosophers, Too
On 5/23/2015 1:44 PM, John Mikes wrote: Samiya, so far I kept out from the 'opposition' and tried to comply within my own agnosticism. Now I get tired of all that fairitale-discussion and ask some questions. LizR asked: */'Does God give any suggestions as to what we should do? /* I start earlier:*/Does God give any suggestions why we should accept it's(?!) existence?/* You assign from the Q'uran the Creation. Easy cop-out. If an infinite wisdom created a world, why should it be so imperfect together with all its inhabitants - requiring constant improvement measures? */(...the One who created, knows and is in perfect control of everything to the minutest detail, and is therefore able to carry out His Will and keep His Promise,...) /* */ /* There is a fundamental illogical factor (for human minds) in the mentioned quotes: Your #1 is questionable with the everlasting punishment upon a minuscule timeframe activity with negligible wisdom - sometimes not even having the 'means' to know, as e.g. handicapped/birthdefected etc. with death in childhood vs old rich imams. The latter maybe in the 'wrong faith(?) as Shiites(?), etc. Your #17 is a supposition without underlying support - includes also a threat. In your #18 you flatly deny the opposing opinion without support. In the entire position the Q'uran-based faith is postulated and required without support to the human mind. It is supported by threats - AND violence by terrorist groups in favor (practice?) of such threats. That is not the way to gain true believers - IMHO. They don't gain true believers, they procreate them. Brent Is there something better you could advise? John M -- 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 http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Physicists Are Philosophers, Too
Samiya, so far I kept out from the 'opposition' and tried to comply within my own agnosticism. Now I get tired of all that fairitale-discussion and ask some questions. LizR asked: *'Does God give any suggestions as to what we should do? * I start earlier:* Does God give any suggestions why we should accept it's(?!) existence?* You assign from the Q'uran the Creation. Easy cop-out. If an infinite wisdom created a world, why should it be so imperfect together with all its inhabitants - requiring constant improvement measures? *(...the One who created, knows and is in perfect control of everything to the minutest detail, and is therefore able to carry out His Will and keep His Promise,...) * There is a fundamental illogical factor (for human minds) in the mentioned quotes: Your #1 is questionable with the everlasting punishment upon a minuscule timeframe activity with negligible wisdom - sometimes not even having the 'means' to know, as e.g. handicapped/birthdefected etc. with death in childhood vs old rich imams. The latter maybe in the 'wrong faith(?) as Shiites(?), etc. Your #17 is a supposition without underlying support - includes also a threat. In your #18 you flatly deny the opposing opinion without support. In the entire position the Q'uran-based faith is postulated and required without support to the human mind. It is supported by threats - AND violence by terrorist groups in favor (practice?) of such threats. That is not the way to gain true believers - IMHO. Is there something better you could advise? John M On Sat, May 23, 2015 at 8:19 AM, Samiya Illias samiyaill...@gmail.com wrote: On Wed, May 13, 2015 at 2:23 AM, Samiya Illias samiyaill...@gmail.com wrote: On 12-May-2015, at 9:39 pm, LizR lizj...@gmail.com wrote: On 13 May 2015 at 14:29, Samiya Illias samiyaill...@gmail.com wrote: 1) The Quran reminds us that humans have been made Incharge of Earth and hence are responsible for the welfare of the Earth and all in it Liz, you had asked: 'Does God give any suggestions as to what we should do? ' While reading the Quran this morning, I realized that I had failed to mention an important message: that we should not transgress the balance, and compassionately establish justice so that the delicate ecosystem is not thrown out of balance: [Al-Qur'an Chapter 55:1, 7-9, Translator: Sahih International] 1 The Most Merciful 7 And the heaven He raised and imposed the balance 8 That you not transgress within the balance. 9 And establish weight in justice and do not make deficient the balance. http://quran.com/55 [Al-Qur'an Chapter 42:17-18, Translator: Sahih International] 17 It is Allah who has sent down the Book in truth and [also] the balance. And what will make you perceive? Perhaps the Hour is near. 18 Those who do not believe in it are impatient for it, but those who believe are fearful of it and know that it is the truth. Unquestionably, those who dispute concerning the Hour are in extreme error. http://quran.com/42 2) The Quran also tells us that we will be held accountable for all that we've been gifted with, hence the more worldly riches or power one has, the greater the responsibility and the greater the accountability So yes, it speaks of all of us and says that every action, intention, everything is being recorded and will be replayed and the criminals will not be able to say anything, rather their bodies will bear witness against themselves. Humans will be recompensed in full in complete justice, and nobody will be wronged in the least. It's a nice fantasy, at least. As opposed to the (apparent) reality that rich people can screw everyone else, each other, and the planet, and still make out like bandits. That is why I suppose facts about creation have been mentioned across the Quran so that those who doubt its authenticity can study and assess for themselves whether this message is from the One who created, knows and is in perfect control of everything to the minutest detail, and is therefore able to carry out His Will and keep His Promise, or if this is just a fantasy. Samiya -- 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 http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- 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 http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit
Re: Something to Argue over
Brilliant! Thank you for that. :-) Although if I was being pedantic, I might point out that Norway's Eurovision entry is actually this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Monster_Like_Me (Not half as good, at a guess...) On 23 May 2015 at 13:53, Kim Jones kimjo...@ozemail.com.au wrote: Norway's entry in the Eurovision Song Contest shows that certain urges rise above self-love, sex and power: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=mbyzgeee2mgfeature=youtu.be Kim Jones B. Mus. GDTL Email: kimjo...@ozemail.com.au kmjco...@icloud.com Mobile: 0450 963 719 Phone: 02 93894239 Web: http://www.eportfolio.kmjcommp.com *I'm not saying there aren't a lot of dangerous people out there. I am saying a lot of them are in government - Russell Brand* -- 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 http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- 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 http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Reconciling Random Neuron Firings and Fading Qualia
On Saturday, May 23, 2015 at 2:14:07 AM UTC+10, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 22 May 2015, at 10:34, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: On Friday, May 22, 2015, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 21 May 2015, at 01:53, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: On Wednesday, May 20, 2015, Jason Resch jasonre...@gmail.com wrote: snip Partial zombies are absurd because they make the concept of consciousness meaningless. OK. Random neurons, separated neurons and platonic computations sustaining consciousness are merely weird, not absurd. Not OK. Random neurone, like the movie, simply does not compute. They only mimic the contingent (and logically unrelated) physical activity related to a special implementation of a computation. If you change the initial computer, that physical activity could mimic another computation. Or, like Maudlin showed: you can change the physical activity arbitrarily, and still mimic the initial computation: so the relation between computation, and the physical activity of the computer running that computation is accidental, nor logical. Platonic computation, on the contrary, does compute (in the original sense of computation). You're assuming not only that computationalism is true, but that it's exclusively true. That is part of the definition, and that is why I add often that we have to say yes to the doctor, in virtue of surviving qua computatio. I have often try to explain that someone can believe in both Church thesis, and say yes to the doctor, but still believe in this not for the reason that the artficial brain will run the relevant computation, but because he believes in the Virgin Mary, and he believes she is good and compensionate, so that if the artificial brain is good enough she will save your soul, and reinstall it in the digital physical brain. That is *not* computationalism. It is computationalism + magic. Go back several steps and consider why we think computationalism might be true in the first place. The usual start is that computers can behave intelligently and substitute for processes in the brain. OK. So if something else can behave intelligently and substitute for processes in the brain, it's not absurd to consider that it might be conscious. It's begging the question to say that it can't be conscious because it isn't a computation. The movie and the lucky random brain are different in that respect. The movie doesn't behave like if it was conscious. I can tell the movie that mustard is a mineral, or an animal, the movie does not react. it fails at the Turing tests, and the zombie test. There is neither computations, nor intelligent behaviors, relevant with the consciousness associated' to the boolean circuit. The inimagibly lucky random brain, on the contrary, does behave in a way making a person acting like a p-zombie or a conscious individual. We don't see the difference with a conscious being, by definition/construction. Well, if a random event mimics by chance a computation, that means at the least that the computation exists (in arithmetic), and I suggest to associate consciousness to it. I suspect you're wrong. In the case of the recording, the movie might still pass the Turing test *if we invert the flukey coincidence* and allow the possibility the questioner might ask questions that exactly correspond to the responses that the film happens to output. I remember watching a Blues Brothers midnight screening once, and all the cult fans who'd go every week would yell things out at certain points in the action and the actors would appear to respond to their shouted questions and interjections. In this case the illusion of conversation was constructed, but it could occur by chance. Would the recording then be conscious? In both the random and fixed response cases, there is no actual link other than coincidence between inputs and outputs, and this is the key. The random brain is not responding or processing inputs at all, any more than the film is. So the key to these types of thought experiments is whether intelligence and consciousness are functions of the responsive relationship between inputs and outputs, or merely the appearance of responsiveness. I think we have to say that actual responsiveness is required, and therefore fearless commit to the idea that a zombie is indeed 'possible', if the infinitely unlikely is possible! I think that arguments based on 'infinite improbability' (white rabbits) must surely be the weakest of all possible arguments in philosophy, and should really just be dismissed out of hand. Just as Deutsch argues that there are no worlds in the multiverse where magic works, only some worlds where it has worked and will never work again, we can admit the possibility of being fooled into believing that a randomly jerking zombie is conscious, or a typewriter-jabbering monkey is the new Shakespeare, but we only
Re: Something to Argue over
Actually it's OK - the food fight at the end's quite fun! On 23 May 2015 at 20:56, LizR lizj...@gmail.com wrote: Brilliant! Thank you for that. :-) Although if I was being pedantic, I might point out that Norway's Eurovision entry is actually this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Monster_Like_Me (Not half as good, at a guess...) On 23 May 2015 at 13:53, Kim Jones kimjo...@ozemail.com.au wrote: Norway's entry in the Eurovision Song Contest shows that certain urges rise above self-love, sex and power: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=mbyzgeee2mgfeature=youtu.be Kim Jones B. Mus. GDTL Email: kimjo...@ozemail.com.au kmjco...@icloud.com Mobile: 0450 963 719 Phone: 02 93894239 Web: http://www.eportfolio.kmjcommp.com *I'm not saying there aren't a lot of dangerous people out there. I am saying a lot of them are in government - Russell Brand* -- 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 http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- 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 http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Reconciling Random Neuron Firings and Fading Qualia errata
OOPS. I meant ...randomly means NOT in accordance... On 5/22/2015 11:15 PM, meekerdb wrote: And note that in this context randomly means in accordance with nomologically determined causal probabilities. It doesn't necessarily mean deterministically. Brent -- 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 http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Reconciling Random Neuron Firings and Fading Qualia
On 5/22/2015 11:06 PM, Pierz wrote: I suspect you're wrong. In the case of the recording, the movie might still pass the Turing test /if we invert the flukey coincidence/ and allow the possibility the questioner might ask questions that exactly correspond to the responses that the film happens to output. I remember watching a Blues Brothers midnight screening once, and all the cult fans who'd go every week would yell things out at certain points in the action and the actors would appear to respond to their shouted questions and interjections. In this case the illusion of conversation was constructed, but it could occur by chance. Would the recording then be conscious? In both the random and fixed response cases, there is no actual link other than coincidence between inputs and outputs, and this is the key. The random brain is not responding or processing inputs at all, any more than the film is. So the key to these types of thought experiments is whether intelligence and consciousness are functions of the responsive relationship between inputs and outputs, or merely the appearance of responsiveness. I think we have to say that actual responsiveness is required, and therefore fearless commit to the idea that a zombie is indeed 'possible', if the infinitely unlikely is possible! I think that arguments based on 'infinite improbability' (white rabbits) must surely be the weakest of all possible arguments in philosophy, and should really just be dismissed out of hand. I agree. Just as Deutsch argues that there are no worlds in the multiverse where magic works, only some worlds where it has worked and will never work again, we can admit the possibility of being fooled into believing that a randomly jerking zombie is conscious, or a typewriter-jabbering monkey is the new Shakespeare, but we only need to wait another second to see that we were mistaken. An objection I foresee is that the brain's neurons and their firing are its sole activity, and so if they fire randomly in a by-chance correct fashion, then the random brain's activity is indistinguishable from a real conscious brain's activity. This is a red herring. How could a randomly operating brain be identical to a healthy consciously functioning one? For the neurons to be firing randomly, something would need to be physically very different and wrong about that brain. If the brain was truly physically identical, then of course it would no longer be firing randomly And note that in this context randomly means in accordance with nomologically determined causal probabilities. It doesn't necessarily mean deterministically. Brent but would /actually/ be an organised, healthy brain, assembled by chance. Such a brain would pass the wait a second test because it would genuinely be responding in an organised manner. -- 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 http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
The scope of physical law and its relationship to the substitution level
Some time ago on this list I had a fascinating exchange with Bruno that has stayed with me, fuelling some attacks of 4am philosophical insomnia - an affliction I imagine I'm not the only person on this list to suffer from! If you try to nail Bruno down on some aspects of his theory, he has a tendency to get all Sg Grz* and p[]p on you at a certain point, making it difficult to progress without a PhD in modal logic - despite the fact that I suspect that the ideas are fundamentally simple. Nevertheless in the course of the discussion, Bruno *did* acknowledge that his theory predicts that the laws of physics are invariant across space and time, because they are supposed to arise out of pure arithmetic (being the hypostases of the FPI bla blas). Indeed, for the dissolution of the material within the arithmetical to go through (logically), then the regularities that we call physical law cannot depend on geography, since *ex hypothesi* they arise from number relations which are prior to time and space. Yet physics - or cosmology - seems to be headed full-steam in a different direction, towards the conclusion that physical law is indeed dependent on geography, the laws we observe being dependent upon an observer selection process. That is, we see physical laws finely honed for life, because life can only exist in those regions where the laws are conducive to life. I'm less sure about this, but I think it might still be OK for physical law to geographically determined in this sense, so long as there are no other observers in different parts of the multiverse who see different laws, but to assume such a thing seems foolish. Why should we believe that of all the possible permutations of the parameters which determined physical, there is only a single solution which permits life? There might be many different So on the face of it, the recent measurements of the mass of the Higgs boson, which are strongly suggestive of a multiverse might be seen as empirical evidence against 'comp'. Yet there is a way - namely an *extremely* low substitution level. You'll recall that the substitution level is the level at which a digital substitute can be made for a brain such that the self (whatever that is) survives the substitution. This might be quite high - perhaps its sufficient to mimic neuronal interconnections in software? Or it might be very low - maybe we need to go down to the molecular level and simulate chemistry. However, it would be a big surprise I imagine for the digital survival enthusiasts if the required level was the entire multiverse! Yet that conclusion seems inescapable if the emerging multiverse cosmology (and comp) is correct. Why would a low substitution level save the day for comp? Because, as stated before, if the physics observed by some conscious being is dependent solely on number relations (as UDA purports to prove), and number relations are pure abstractions prior to matter, space and time, then physics cannot be contingent on geography, because *it* is contingent on matter, space and time. So if comp is correct, and it is also correct that we live in a multiverse such that observers see different apparent laws in different parts of that structure, then the only solution (ISTM) is to make the observer large enough to encompass the geographical variation. But such a low substitution level seems counter to most of the common sense assumptions about consciousness that are the basis for the logic of UDA seeming plausible at all. It would commit us to the idea that teleportation of the 'same' consciousness from Washington to Helsinki is impossible, because we couldn't isolate the person's consciousness within any reasonable physical limits, such as their brain or body. We'd need to substitute the entirety of everything, including Helsinki and Washington themselves! But what then is the status of a teleported person, if such a thing could be achieved? If we reassemble the exact same organization of molecules such that nobody, not even the person, could tell the difference, then how has the substitution level *not* been achieved? Perhaps the answer to the conundrum lies in the definition of physical law? Perhaps things like the cosmological constant, the masses and charges of particles and so on, which I would normally regard as aspects of the laws of physics (and which recent results suggest may not be the same in all parts of the multiverse) are not the *real* laws of physics. Rather it is the deeper laws which underly those geographically contingent apparent laws which are the true laws of physics, and which derive from number relations. However, that manoeuvre won't save us, because then in order for an observer to experience a certain set of apparent physical laws, I need to specify within which branch of computations (multiverse region) I am instantiating that observer. That is the same as saying that the substitution level is
Re: Something to Argue over
I should have posted a link to the video. Nothing like as good as the one you posted, but as I said the end's quite fun. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1td70yaoS8 On 23 May 2015 at 21:00, LizR lizj...@gmail.com wrote: Actually it's OK - the food fight at the end's quite fun! On 23 May 2015 at 20:56, LizR lizj...@gmail.com wrote: Brilliant! Thank you for that. :-) Although if I was being pedantic, I might point out that Norway's Eurovision entry is actually this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Monster_Like_Me (Not half as good, at a guess...) On 23 May 2015 at 13:53, Kim Jones kimjo...@ozemail.com.au wrote: Norway's entry in the Eurovision Song Contest shows that certain urges rise above self-love, sex and power: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=mbyzgeee2mgfeature=youtu.be Kim Jones B. Mus. GDTL Email: kimjo...@ozemail.com.au kmjco...@icloud.com Mobile: 0450 963 719 Phone: 02 93894239 Web: http://www.eportfolio.kmjcommp.com *I'm not saying there aren't a lot of dangerous people out there. I am saying a lot of them are in government - Russell Brand* -- 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 http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- 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 http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: What is really real?
I'm always suspicious when someone starts by dissing everyone else in their field. (It didn't work for Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, after all...) -- 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 http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Physicists Are Philosophers, Too
On Wed, May 13, 2015 at 2:23 AM, Samiya Illias samiyaill...@gmail.com wrote: On 12-May-2015, at 9:39 pm, LizR lizj...@gmail.com wrote: On 13 May 2015 at 14:29, Samiya Illias samiyaill...@gmail.com wrote: 1) The Quran reminds us that humans have been made Incharge of Earth and hence are responsible for the welfare of the Earth and all in it Liz, you had asked: 'Does God give any suggestions as to what we should do? ' While reading the Quran this morning, I realized that I had failed to mention an important message: that we should not transgress the balance, and compassionately establish justice so that the delicate ecosystem is not thrown out of balance: [Al-Qur'an Chapter 55:1, 7-9, Translator: Sahih International] 1 The Most Merciful 7 And the heaven He raised and imposed the balance 8 That you not transgress within the balance. 9 And establish weight in justice and do not make deficient the balance. http://quran.com/55 [Al-Qur'an Chapter 42:17-18, Translator: Sahih International] 17 It is Allah who has sent down the Book in truth and [also] the balance. And what will make you perceive? Perhaps the Hour is near. 18 Those who do not believe in it are impatient for it, but those who believe are fearful of it and know that it is the truth. Unquestionably, those who dispute concerning the Hour are in extreme error. http://quran.com/42 2) The Quran also tells us that we will be held accountable for all that we've been gifted with, hence the more worldly riches or power one has, the greater the responsibility and the greater the accountability So yes, it speaks of all of us and says that every action, intention, everything is being recorded and will be replayed and the criminals will not be able to say anything, rather their bodies will bear witness against themselves. Humans will be recompensed in full in complete justice, and nobody will be wronged in the least. It's a nice fantasy, at least. As opposed to the (apparent) reality that rich people can screw everyone else, each other, and the planet, and still make out like bandits. That is why I suppose facts about creation have been mentioned across the Quran so that those who doubt its authenticity can study and assess for themselves whether this message is from the One who created, knows and is in perfect control of everything to the minutest detail, and is therefore able to carry out His Will and keep His Promise, or if this is just a fantasy. Samiya -- 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 http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- 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 http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: The scope of physical law and its relationship to the substitution level
I'm not sure why comp would predict that physical laws are invariant for all observers. I can see that it would lead to a sort of super-anthropic-selection effect, but surely all possible observers should exist somewhere in arithmetic, including ones who observe different physics (that is compatible with their existence) ? On 23 May 2015 at 21:23, Pierz pier...@gmail.com wrote: Some time ago on this list I had a fascinating exchange with Bruno that has stayed with me, fuelling some attacks of 4am philosophical insomnia - an affliction I imagine I'm not the only person on this list to suffer from! If you try to nail Bruno down on some aspects of his theory, he has a tendency to get all Sg Grz* and p[]p on you at a certain point, making it difficult to progress without a PhD in modal logic - despite the fact that I suspect that the ideas are fundamentally simple. Nevertheless in the course of the discussion, Bruno *did* acknowledge that his theory predicts that the laws of physics are invariant across space and time, because they are supposed to arise out of pure arithmetic (being the hypostases of the FPI bla blas). Indeed, for the dissolution of the material within the arithmetical to go through (logically), then the regularities that we call physical law cannot depend on geography, since *ex hypothesi* they arise from number relations which are prior to time and space. Yet physics - or cosmology - seems to be headed full-steam in a different direction, towards the conclusion that physical law is indeed dependent on geography, the laws we observe being dependent upon an observer selection process. That is, we see physical laws finely honed for life, because life can only exist in those regions where the laws are conducive to life. I'm less sure about this, but I think it might still be OK for physical law to geographically determined in this sense, so long as there are no other observers in different parts of the multiverse who see different laws, but to assume such a thing seems foolish. Why should we believe that of all the possible permutations of the parameters which determined physical, there is only a single solution which permits life? There might be many different So on the face of it, the recent measurements of the mass of the Higgs boson, which are strongly suggestive of a multiverse might be seen as empirical evidence against 'comp'. Yet there is a way - namely an *extremely* low substitution level. You'll recall that the substitution level is the level at which a digital substitute can be made for a brain such that the self (whatever that is) survives the substitution. This might be quite high - perhaps its sufficient to mimic neuronal interconnections in software? Or it might be very low - maybe we need to go down to the molecular level and simulate chemistry. However, it would be a big surprise I imagine for the digital survival enthusiasts if the required level was the entire multiverse! Yet that conclusion seems inescapable if the emerging multiverse cosmology (and comp) is correct. Why would a low substitution level save the day for comp? Because, as stated before, if the physics observed by some conscious being is dependent solely on number relations (as UDA purports to prove), and number relations are pure abstractions prior to matter, space and time, then physics cannot be contingent on geography, because *it* is contingent on matter, space and time. So if comp is correct, and it is also correct that we live in a multiverse such that observers see different apparent laws in different parts of that structure, then the only solution (ISTM) is to make the observer large enough to encompass the geographical variation. But such a low substitution level seems counter to most of the common sense assumptions about consciousness that are the basis for the logic of UDA seeming plausible at all. It would commit us to the idea that teleportation of the 'same' consciousness from Washington to Helsinki is impossible, because we couldn't isolate the person's consciousness within any reasonable physical limits, such as their brain or body. We'd need to substitute the entirety of everything, including Helsinki and Washington themselves! But what then is the status of a teleported person, if such a thing could be achieved? If we reassemble the exact same organization of molecules such that nobody, not even the person, could tell the difference, then how has the substitution level *not* been achieved? Perhaps the answer to the conundrum lies in the definition of physical law? Perhaps things like the cosmological constant, the masses and charges of particles and so on, which I would normally regard as aspects of the laws of physics (and which recent results suggest may not be the same in all parts of the multiverse) are not the *real* laws of physics. Rather it is the deeper laws which underly those geographically contingent apparent
Re: Reconciling Random Neuron Firings and Fading Qualia
On Sat, May 23, 2015 at 1:15 AM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 5/22/2015 11:06 PM, Pierz wrote: I suspect you're wrong. In the case of the recording, the movie might still pass the Turing test *if we invert the flukey coincidence* and allow the possibility the questioner might ask questions that exactly correspond to the responses that the film happens to output. I remember watching a Blues Brothers midnight screening once, and all the cult fans who'd go every week would yell things out at certain points in the action and the actors would appear to respond to their shouted questions and interjections. In this case the illusion of conversation was constructed, but it could occur by chance. Would the recording then be conscious? In both the random and fixed response cases, there is no actual link other than coincidence between inputs and outputs, and this is the key. The random brain is not responding or processing inputs at all, any more than the film is. So the key to these types of thought experiments is whether intelligence and consciousness are functions of the responsive relationship between inputs and outputs, or merely the appearance of responsiveness. I think we have to say that actual responsiveness is required, and therefore fearless commit to the idea that a zombie is indeed 'possible', if the infinitely unlikely is possible! I think that arguments based on 'infinite improbability' (white rabbits) must surely be the weakest of all possible arguments in philosophy, and should really just be dismissed out of hand. I agree. I don't look at these rare scenarios as arguments, but as tools to refine our understanding of computationalism. Look at what it has already done. Bruno, Stathis, and myself -- all people who have argued for computationalism, are now finding we disagree on issues raised by these extreme scenarios: infinite luck, infinitely large lookup tables, etc. Whatever else you might say of these extreme cases, I think they are useful. They initiated this debate, which will hopefully lead to increased clarity concerning computationalism. Jason Just as Deutsch argues that there are no worlds in the multiverse where magic works, only some worlds where it has worked and will never work again, we can admit the possibility of being fooled into believing that a randomly jerking zombie is conscious, or a typewriter-jabbering monkey is the new Shakespeare, but we only need to wait another second to see that we were mistaken. An objection I foresee is that the brain's neurons and their firing are its sole activity, and so if they fire randomly in a by-chance correct fashion, then the random brain's activity is indistinguishable from a real conscious brain's activity. This is a red herring. How could a randomly operating brain be identical to a healthy consciously functioning one? For the neurons to be firing randomly, something would need to be physically very different and wrong about that brain. If the brain was truly physically identical, then of course it would no longer be firing randomly And note that in this context randomly means in accordance with nomologically determined causal probabilities. It doesn't necessarily mean deterministically. Brent but would *actually* be an organised, healthy brain, assembled by chance. Such a brain would pass the wait a second test because it would genuinely be responding in an organised manner. -- 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 http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- 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 http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Reconciling Random Neuron Firings and Fading Qualia
On Tue, May 19, 2015 at 12:44 PM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 19 May 2015, at 15:53, Jason Resch wrote: On Tue, May 19, 2015 at 12:06 AM, Stathis Papaioannou stath...@gmail.com wrote: On 19 May 2015 at 14:45, Jason Resch jasonre...@gmail.com wrote: On Mon, May 18, 2015 at 9:21 PM, Stathis Papaioannou stath...@gmail.com wrote: On 19 May 2015 at 11:02, Jason Resch jasonre...@gmail.com wrote: I think you're not taking into account the level of the functional substitution. Of course functionally equivalent silicon and functionally equivalent neurons can (under functionalism) both instantiate the same consciousness. But a calculator computing 2+3 cannot substitute for a human brain computing 2+3 and produce the same consciousness. In a gradual replacement the substitution must obviously be at a level sufficient to maintain the function of the whole brain. Sticking a calculator in it won't work. Do you think a Blockhead that was functionally equivalent to you (it could fool all your friends and family in a Turing test scenario into thinking it was intact you) would be conscious in the same way as you? Not necessarily, just as an actor may not be conscious in the same way as me. But I suspect the Blockhead would be conscious; the intuition that a lookup table can't be conscious is like the intuition that an electric circuit can't be conscious. I don't see an equivalency between those intuitions. A lookup table has a bounded and very low degree of computational complexity: all answers to all queries are answered in constant time. While the table itself may have an arbitrarily high information content, what in the software of the lookup table program is there to appreciate/understand/know that information? Understanding emerges from the fact that the lookup table is immensely large. It could be wrong, but I don't think it is obviously less plausible than understanding emerging from a Turing machine made of tin cans. The lookup table is intelligent or at least offers the appearance of intelligence, but it makes the maximum possible advantage of the space-time trade off: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space–time_tradeoff The tin-can Turing machine is unbounded in its potential computational complexity, there's no reason to be a bio- or silico-chauvinist against it. However, by definition, a lookup table has near zero computational complexity, no retained state. But it is counterfactually correct on a large range spectrum. Of course, it has to be infinite to be genuinely counterfactual-correct. But the structure of the counterfactuals is identical regardless of the inputs and outputs in its lookup table. If you replaced all of its outputs with random strings, would that change its consciousness? What if there existed a special decoding book, which was a one-time-pad that could decode its random answers? Would the existence of this book make it more conscious than if this book did not exist? If there is zero information content in the outputs returned by the lookup table it might as well return all X characters as its response to any query, but then would any program that just returns a string of X's be conscious? A lookup table might have some primitive conscious, but I think any consciousness it has would be more or less the same regardless of the number of entries within that lookup table. With more entries, its information content grows, but it's capacity to process, interpret, or understand that information remains constant. Does an ant trained to perform the look table's operation become more aware when placed in a vast library than when placed on a small bookshelf, to perform the identical function? Are you not doing the Searle's level confusion? I see the close parallel, but I hope not. The input to the ant when interpreted as a binary string is a number, that tells the ant how many pages to walk past to get to the page containing the answer, where the ant stops the paper is read. I don't see how this system consisting of the ant, and the library, is conscious. The system is intelligent, in that it provides meaningful answers to queries, but it processes no information besides evaluating the magnitude of an input (represented as a number) and then jumping to that offset to read that memory location. Can there be consciousness in a simple A implies B relation? The consciousness (if there is one) is the consciousness of the person, incarnated in the program. It is not the consciousness of the low level processor, no more than the physicality which supports the ant and the table. Again, with comp there is never any problem with all of this. The consciousness is an immaterial attribute of an immaterial program/machine's soul, which is defined exclusively by a class of true number relations. While I can see certain very complex number relations leading to
Re: Reconciling Random Neuron Firings and Fading Qualia
On Wed, May 20, 2015 at 4:20 AM, Stathis Papaioannou stath...@gmail.com wrote: On Tuesday, 19 May 2015, Jason Resch jasonre...@gmail.com wrote: On Tue, May 19, 2015 at 12:06 AM, Stathis Papaioannou stath...@gmail.com wrote: Not necessarily, just as an actor may not be conscious in the same way as me. But I suspect the Blockhead would be conscious; the intuition that a lookup table can't be conscious is like the intuition that an electric circuit can't be conscious. I don't see an equivalency between those intuitions. A lookup table has a bounded and very low degree of computational complexity: all answers to all queries are answered in constant time. While the table itself may have an arbitrarily high information content, what in the software of the lookup table program is there to appreciate/understand/know that information? Understanding emerges from the fact that the lookup table is immensely large. It could be wrong, but I don't think it is obviously less plausible than understanding emerging from a Turing machine made of tin cans. The lookup table is intelligent or at least offers the appearance of intelligence, but it makes the maximum possible advantage of the space-time trade off: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space–time_tradeoff The tin-can Turing machine is unbounded in its potential computational complexity, there's no reason to be a bio- or silico-chauvinist against it. However, by definition, a lookup table has near zero computational complexity, no retained state. Does an ant trained to perform the look table's operation become more aware when placed in a vast library than when placed on a small bookshelf, to perform the identical function? The ant is more aware than a neuron but it is not the ant's awareness that is at issue, it is the system of which the ant is a part. Step back and consider why we speculate that computationalism may be true. It is not because computers are complex like brains, or because brains carry out computations like computers. It is because animals with brains display intelligent behaviour, and computers also display intelligent behaviour, or at least might in the future. If Blockheads roamed the Earth answering all our questions, then surely we would debate whether they were conscious like us, whether they have feelings and whether they should be accorded human rights. I would not torture a blockhead nor refuse to serve one in my restaurant, but I might caution my daughter before marrying one that it might be a zombie. I know I sound like Craig in saying this but I see a difference in kind between the programs, even if they have an equivalence in inputs and outputs at some high layer. There, is, for instance, no society of mind or modularity of mind as Minsky and Fodor spoke of. Here there is only a top level defintion of high level inputs and outputs. Jason -- 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 http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Physicists Are Philosophers, Too
On Sat, May 23, 2015 Samiya Illias samiyaill...@gmail.com wrote: While reading the Quran this morning Were you looking for loopholes? John K Clark -- 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 http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: The scope of physical law and its relationship to the substitution level
On Saturday, May 23, 2015 at 8:36:40 PM UTC+10, Liz R wrote: I'm not sure why comp would predict that physical laws are invariant for all observers. I can see that it would lead to a sort of super-anthropic-selection effect, but surely all possible observers should exist somewhere in arithmetic, including ones who observe different physics (that is compatible with their existence) ? I really must dig up the old thread! But I'm not saying comp does entail invariant physics for all observers, just that if there are different physics, the substitution level must be very low indeed. Think of the original scenario in the UDA: a person in Washington is suddenly annihilated, and then duplicated in Helsinki and Moscow (or whatever). That operation creates a 50% probability of finding oneself in Helsinki or Moscow. But the ultimate point of the UDA is that one's actual probability of finding oneself in Helsinki or Washington depends on the total measure of *all* virtual environments within which that observer is instantiated in an environment that looks like one of those cities. One can't isolate a particular virtual system from the trace of the UD. So you can't create an arbitrary physics in an environment that looks like either city (or anywhere). Well you can, but any observer will always find their own physics to be the measure of *all* their continuations in arithmetic. So there can't be an environment that is like Helsinki or Moscow at some point but that has different physical laws. Carry this logic over to the scenario of a person standing in an empty room - the physics the person experiences will be the measure of all such identical persons standing in empty rooms. The question here is what constitutes the observer? How detailed would a simulation of me have to be before it became a subjective *duplicate* of me, its continuations my continuations? If there is a person A somewhere in the UD who is experiencing an empty room with physics A, and another identically configured person B somewhere else experiencing physics B, what is stopping the continuations of A mixing with the continuations of B, so that the measures combine into a merged physics? There has to be something in both observers' computational states that distinguishes them sufficiently that their experiences cannot interfere with one another - the comp equivalent of decoherence. (In fact if QM effects are the manifestation of UD observer measures, the threshold at which these effects start to kick in should probably give us a strong clue about how low the substitution level is!) Observers and their experiences, including physical laws, can't be kept apart by physical or temporal space, but only by differences in the computational states that define them. Physics is emergent from the computational properties of observers, and therefore any difference in physics experienced by different observers is a function of their mathematical configuration. If we find that there are observers in other universes who experience different physics, then it must be the case that the substitution level for those observers includes their entire universe. That said, if I recall our previous discussion correctly, Bruno disfavoured the idea of different physics for different observers. He seems to believe it should indeed be invariant. That position appears to me to be at odds with the direction of modern cosmology. On 23 May 2015 at 21:23, Pierz pie...@gmail.com javascript: wrote: Some time ago on this list I had a fascinating exchange with Bruno that has stayed with me, fuelling some attacks of 4am philosophical insomnia - an affliction I imagine I'm not the only person on this list to suffer from! If you try to nail Bruno down on some aspects of his theory, he has a tendency to get all Sg Grz* and p[]p on you at a certain point, making it difficult to progress without a PhD in modal logic - despite the fact that I suspect that the ideas are fundamentally simple. Nevertheless in the course of the discussion, Bruno *did* acknowledge that his theory predicts that the laws of physics are invariant across space and time, because they are supposed to arise out of pure arithmetic (being the hypostases of the FPI bla blas). Indeed, for the dissolution of the material within the arithmetical to go through (logically), then the regularities that we call physical law cannot depend on geography, since *ex hypothesi* they arise from number relations which are prior to time and space. Yet physics - or cosmology - seems to be headed full-steam in a different direction, towards the conclusion that physical law is indeed dependent on geography, the laws we observe being dependent upon an observer selection process. That is, we see physical laws finely honed for life, because life can only exist in those regions where the laws are conducive to life. I'm less sure about this, but I
Re: Physicists Are Philosophers, Too
John M, I'm not sure I understand your questions. Can you kindly quote #1, #17 #18 so that I can try to respond to it? By the way, this thread started with a discussion about global warming, and I shared a news from European Space Agency regarding Glacial Melt in Antarctica. Is that an authentic news source? I later mentioned that I came across this research while trying to comprehend the verse from the Quran foretelling the eventual and inevitable heating of the seas and only shared the link to my blog. Liz asked a question, hence I responded. Bruno opined and quoted the Quran, and I responded. Nobody is required to believe. If you find the verses of the Quran stating truths, it's up to you to choose whether to accept or to reject it. If the scriptures are divine guidance and there is a Judgement in the Hereafter, then it's to our own personal benefit or loss whether we choose to believe or to reject. According to the Quran, God is not affected by our choice! The guidance is only there for whoever wishes to help themselves and strive for a better future by taking this temporal exam / role / aptitude test seriously. Why this temporal exam / role / aptitude test, I've already quoted the verses which state that humans chose to bear the Trust and therefore the need to be judged whether we qualify to inherit the everlasting Earth with Gardens, or cannot be trusted with it's well-being. To my mind, human actions (individual and collective), as well as inaction, which have contributed to global warming and the general state of the Earth are quite pertinent to our eligibility to inherit the permanent residence of the Hereafter. How many of us can be really trusted with something so precious and so permanent? Samiya On 23-May-2015, at 4:44 pm, John Mikes jami...@gmail.com wrote: Samiya, so far I kept out from the 'opposition' and tried to comply within my own agnosticism. Now I get tired of all that fairitale-discussion and ask some questions. LizR asked: 'Does God give any suggestions as to what we should do? I start earlier: Does God give any suggestions why we should accept it's(?!) existence? You assign from the Q'uran the Creation. Easy cop-out. If an infinite wisdom created a world, why should it be so imperfect together with all its inhabitants - requiring constant improvement measures? (...the One who created, knows and is in perfect control of everything to the minutest detail, and is therefore able to carry out His Will and keep His Promise,...) There is a fundamental illogical factor (for human minds) in the mentioned quotes: Your #1 is questionable with the everlasting punishment upon a minuscule timeframe activity with negligible wisdom - sometimes not even having the 'means' to know, as e.g. handicapped/birthdefected etc. with death in childhood vs old rich imams. The latter maybe in the 'wrong faith(?) as Shiites(?), etc. Your #17 is a supposition without underlying support - includes also a threat. In your #18 you flatly deny the opposing opinion without support. In the entire position the Q'uran-based faith is postulated and required without support to the human mind. It is supported by threats - AND violence by terrorist groups in favor (practice?) of such threats. That is not the way to gain true believers - IMHO. Is there something better you could advise? John M On Sat, May 23, 2015 at 8:19 AM, Samiya Illias samiyaill...@gmail.com wrote: On Wed, May 13, 2015 at 2:23 AM, Samiya Illias samiyaill...@gmail.com wrote: On 12-May-2015, at 9:39 pm, LizR lizj...@gmail.com wrote: On 13 May 2015 at 14:29, Samiya Illias samiyaill...@gmail.com wrote: 1) The Quran reminds us that humans have been made Incharge of Earth and hence are responsible for the welfare of the Earth and all in it Liz, you had asked: 'Does God give any suggestions as to what we should do? ' While reading the Quran this morning, I realized that I had failed to mention an important message: that we should not transgress the balance, and compassionately establish justice so that the delicate ecosystem is not thrown out of balance: [Al-Qur'an Chapter 55:1, 7-9, Translator: Sahih International] 1 The Most Merciful 7 And the heaven He raised and imposed the balance 8 That you not transgress within the balance. 9 And establish weight in justice and do not make deficient the balance. http://quran.com/55 [Al-Qur'an Chapter 42:17-18, Translator: Sahih International] 17 It is Allah who has sent down the Book in truth and [also] the balance. And what will make you perceive? Perhaps the Hour is near. 18 Those who do not believe in it are impatient for it, but those who believe are fearful of it and know that it is the truth. Unquestionably, those who dispute concerning the Hour are in extreme error. http://quran.com/42 2) The Quran also tells us that we will be
Re: Reconciling Random Neuron Firings and Fading Qualia
On Sunday, May 24, 2015 at 1:07:15 AM UTC+10, Jason wrote: On Tue, May 19, 2015 at 12:44 PM, Bruno Marchal mar...@ulb.ac.be javascript: wrote: On 19 May 2015, at 15:53, Jason Resch wrote: On Tue, May 19, 2015 at 12:06 AM, Stathis Papaioannou stat...@gmail.com javascript: wrote: On 19 May 2015 at 14:45, Jason Resch jason...@gmail.com javascript: wrote: On Mon, May 18, 2015 at 9:21 PM, Stathis Papaioannou stat...@gmail.com javascript: wrote: On 19 May 2015 at 11:02, Jason Resch jason...@gmail.com javascript: wrote: I think you're not taking into account the level of the functional substitution. Of course functionally equivalent silicon and functionally equivalent neurons can (under functionalism) both instantiate the same consciousness. But a calculator computing 2+3 cannot substitute for a human brain computing 2+3 and produce the same consciousness. In a gradual replacement the substitution must obviously be at a level sufficient to maintain the function of the whole brain. Sticking a calculator in it won't work. Do you think a Blockhead that was functionally equivalent to you (it could fool all your friends and family in a Turing test scenario into thinking it was intact you) would be conscious in the same way as you? Not necessarily, just as an actor may not be conscious in the same way as me. But I suspect the Blockhead would be conscious; the intuition that a lookup table can't be conscious is like the intuition that an electric circuit can't be conscious. I don't see an equivalency between those intuitions. A lookup table has a bounded and very low degree of computational complexity: all answers to all queries are answered in constant time. While the table itself may have an arbitrarily high information content, what in the software of the lookup table program is there to appreciate/understand/know that information? Understanding emerges from the fact that the lookup table is immensely large. It could be wrong, but I don't think it is obviously less plausible than understanding emerging from a Turing machine made of tin cans. The lookup table is intelligent or at least offers the appearance of intelligence, but it makes the maximum possible advantage of the space-time trade off: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space–time_tradeoff The tin-can Turing machine is unbounded in its potential computational complexity, there's no reason to be a bio- or silico-chauvinist against it. However, by definition, a lookup table has near zero computational complexity, no retained state. But it is counterfactually correct on a large range spectrum. Of course, it has to be infinite to be genuinely counterfactual-correct. But the structure of the counterfactuals is identical regardless of the inputs and outputs in its lookup table. If you replaced all of its outputs with random strings, would that change its consciousness? What if there existed a special decoding book, which was a one-time-pad that could decode its random answers? Would the existence of this book make it more conscious than if this book did not exist? If there is zero information content in the outputs returned by the lookup table it might as well return all X characters as its response to any query, but then would any program that just returns a string of X's be conscious? I really like this argument, even though I once came up with a (bad) attempt to refute it. I wish it received more attention because it does cast quite a penetrating light on the issue. What you're suggesting is effectively the cache pattern in computer programming, where we trade memory resources for computational resources. Instead of repeating a resource-intensive computation, we store the inputs and outputs for later regurgitation. The cached results 'store' intelligence in an analogous way to the storage of energy as potential energy. We effectively flatten out time (the computational process) into the spatial dimension (memory). The cache pattern does not allow us to cheat the law that intelligent work must be done in order to produce intelligent results, it merely allows us to do that work at a time that suits us. The intelligence has been transferred into the spatial relationships built into the table, intelligent relationships we can only discover by doing the computations. The lookup table is useless without its index. So what your thought experiment points out is pretty fascinating: that intelligence can be manifested spatially as well as temporally, contrary to our common-sense intuition, and that the intelligence of a machine does not have to be in real time. That actually supports the MGA if anything - because computations are abstractions outside of time and space. We should not forget that the memory resources required to duplicate any kind of intelligent computer would be
