Re: MGA 2
Hello Bruno, I think you are correct, but allowing the observer to be mechanically described as obeying the wave equation (which solutions obeys to comp), Hmm well if you have a basis, yes; - but naked infinite-dimensional Hilbert Space (the everything in QM)? You put the finger on a problem I have with QM. I ill make a confession: I don't believe QM is really turing universal. The universal quantum rotation does not generate any interesting computations! Could you please elaborate a bit on the two above sentences. I am missing a more context to understand where really points to. And with the second sentence, I simply don't understand it. I am open, say, to the idea that quantum universality needs measurement, and this could only exists internally. So the naked infinidimensional Hilbert space + the universal wave (rotation, unitary transformation) is a simpler ontology than arithmetical truth. Yet, even on the vaccum, from inside its gives all the non linearities you need to build arithmetic ... and consciousness. Cheers, mirek --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: MGA 2
Hi Mirek, On 12 Jan 2009, at 15:36, Mirek Dobsicek wrote: Hello Bruno, I think you are correct, but allowing the observer to be mechanically described as obeying the wave equation (which solutions obeys to comp), Hmm well if you have a basis, yes; - but naked infinite- dimensional Hilbert Space (the everything in QM)? You put the finger on a problem I have with QM. I ill make a confession: I don't believe QM is really turing universal. The universal quantum rotation does not generate any interesting computations! Could you please elaborate a bit on the two above sentences. I am missing a more context to understand where really points to. really was just some emphases. Also I should have said instead: I don't understand how QM can be really Turing Universal. This could be, and probably is, due to my incompetence. It is due to the fact that I have never succeed in programming a clear precise quantum Universal dovetailer in a purely unitary way. The classical universal dovetailer generates easily all the quantum computations, but I find hard to just define *one* unitary transformation, without measurement, capable of generating forever greater computational memory space. Other problems are more technical, and are related to the very notion of universality and are rather well discussed in the 2007 paper: Deutsch's Universal Quantum Turing Machine revisited. http://arxiv.org/pdf/quant-ph/0701108v1 And with the second sentence, I simply don't understand it. Me too. Forget it. Let me try to remember what I did have in the mind. I guess I did have wanted to say that a universal unitary transformation (what I meant by Universal Quantum rotation) cannot generate infinite complexity, although I have a good idea why a sufficiently big or rich unitary transformation can generate any long (but finite) simulation of any universal Turing machine. This is again related to my lack of success in just programming the Universal quantum Dovetailer. If you have any idea how to do that, let me know. I am not sure I am saying deep things (here :), just that I have not enough practice in quantum computing to make all this clear, and when I consult the literature on quantum universality it makes things worse (see the paper above). I could relate this with technical problem with the BCI combinator algebra, that is those structure in which every process are reversible, and no cloning are possible (cf the No Kestrel, No Starling summary of physics(*)). Those algebra are easily shown being non turing universal, and pure unitarity seems to me to lead to such algebra. This leads to the prospect that a sort of Everything-structure could exist, yet not be Turing universal. Computers would just not exist, in the sense that the universe, in that case, would not been able to provide the extendable memory space without which universality does not exist. This would not make the UDA (AUDA) reasoning false, but it would make the ultimate physics still much more constrained. Physical reality would be essentially finite. I was pointing on place where I am a bit lost myself, which means that I am the one who would like a bit more explanation. Could you implement with a quantum computer the really infinite counting algorithm by a purely unitary transformation? The one which generates without stopping 0, 1, 2, 3, ... That would already be a big help. Bruno (*) Marchal B., 2005, Theoretical computer science and the natural sciences, Physics of Life Reviews, Vol. 2 Issue 4 December 2005, pp. 251-289. I am open, say, to the idea that quantum universality needs measurement, and this could only exists internally. So the naked infinidimensional Hilbert space + the universal wave (rotation, unitary transformation) is a simpler ontology than arithmetical truth. Yet, even on the vaccum, from inside its gives all the non linearities you need to build arithmetic ... and consciousness. Cheers, mirek 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-l...@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: MGA 2
On Dec 3, 2008, at 5:02 AM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: I struggle with the question of what a platonic object actually is, even for something very simple. Let's say the implementation of a circle supports roundness in the same way that a certain computation supports consciousness. We can easily think of many ways a circle can be represented in the real world, but which of these should we think of when considering the platonic object? Is it possible to point to platonic square and say it isn't round, or does the square support roundness implicitly since it could be considered a circle transformed? And is there any reason not to consider roundness as a basic platonic object in itself, perhaps with circles somehow supervening on roundness rather than the other way around? I see what you mean. But I'm uncomfortable with (what I perceive as) the resulting vagueness in the platonic view of consciousness. You've indicated that you think of consciousness as fundamentally computational and Platonic - that's it's an essential side-effect of platonic computations, as addition is the essential side-effect of the sum of two-numbers. But if we don't have a clear conception of platonic computations, do we even really know what we're talking about? I'm worried, essentially, that the move to Platonia solves the problems created by these thought experiments only by creating a view of consciousness that's too vague to allow such problems to arise. -- Kory --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: MGA 2
2008/12/7 Kory Heath [EMAIL PROTECTED]: I see what you mean. But I'm uncomfortable with (what I perceive as) the resulting vagueness in the platonic view of consciousness. You've indicated that you think of consciousness as fundamentally computational and Platonic - that's it's an essential side-effect of platonic computations, as addition is the essential side-effect of the sum of two-numbers. But if we don't have a clear conception of platonic computations, do we even really know what we're talking about? I'm worried, essentially, that the move to Platonia solves the problems created by these thought experiments only by creating a view of consciousness that's too vague to allow such problems to arise. I agree that it's vague, but any way you look at it consciousness is vague, slippery and elusive. This is probably why philosophers and scientists who like to be clear about things have sometimes come to the conclusion that consciousness is not real at all: the only real thing is intelligence, which manifests as intelligent behaviour. This idea steers a course between Scylla (paradoxes) and Charybdis (vagueness and mysticism) and is attractive... as long as you avoid introspection. -- Stathis Papaioannou --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: MGA 2
2008/12/1 Kory Heath [EMAIL PROTECTED]: Ok, I'm with you so far. But I'd like to get a better handle your concept of a computation in Platonia. Here's one way I've been picturing platonic computation: Imagine an infinite 2-dimensional grid filled with the binary digits of PI. Now imagine an infinite number of 2-dimensional grids on top of that one, with each grid containing the bits from the grid beneath it, as transformed by the Conway's Life rules. This is a description of a platonic computational object. Of course, my language is somewhat visual, but that's incidental. The point is, this is a precisely defined mathematical object. We can point at any cell in this infinite grid, and there is an answer to whether or not this bit is on or off, given our definitions. (More formally, we can define an abstract computational function that accepts any integer and returns the state of that bit, given all of our definitions.) Do you find this an acceptable way (not necessarily the only way) of describing a computational platonic object? How would you talk about how consciousness relates to the conscious-seeming patterns in this platonic object? Would you say that consciousness supervenes on those portions of this platonic computation? I struggle with the question of what a platonic object actually is, even for something very simple. Let's say the implementation of a circle supports roundness in the same way that a certain computation supports consciousness. We can easily think of many ways a circle can be represented in the real world, but which of these should we think of when considering the platonic object? Is it possible to point to platonic square and say it isn't round, or does the square support roundness implicitly since it could be considered a circle transformed? And is there any reason not to consider roundness as a basic platonic object in itself, perhaps with circles somehow supervening on roundness rather than the other way around? -- Stathis Papaioannou --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: MGA 2
Stathis Papaioannou wrote: I realise this coming close to regarding consciousness as akin to the religious notion of a disembodied soul. But what are the alternatives? As I see it, if we don't discard computationalism the only alternative is to deny that consciousness exists at all, which seems to me incoherent. ACK But the differences are so enormous that one is again very far from religion. In religion, the soul is an essence of a person interfacing with a material body and usually exposed to some kind of judgement in an afterlife. With COMP the soul - better: mind - is all there is - no material world, no essence, no judgements, just COMP. And it supervenes on - better: is (inside/outside view) - computations (see UDA for details ;-) Cheers, Günther --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: MGA 2
On 30 Nov 2008, at 16:31, Günther Greindl wrote: Stathis Papaioannou wrote: I realise this coming close to regarding consciousness as akin to the religious notion of a disembodied soul. But what are the alternatives? As I see it, if we don't discard computationalism the only alternative is to deny that consciousness exists at all, which seems to me incoherent. ACK But the differences are so enormous that one is again very far from religion. In religion, the soul is an essence of a person interfacing with a material body and usually exposed to some kind of judgement in an afterlife. I guess you mean our occidental religion ( which are about 40% Plato, 60% Aristotle, say). With COMP the soul - better: mind - is all there is - no material world, no essence, no judgements, Well, to be frank, we don't know that. Open problem :) just COMP. Well, mainly its consequences, IF true. Thanks for your encouraging kind remarks in your posts, Günther. 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: MGA 2
On Nov 30, 2008, at 3:19 AM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: Yes, and I think of consciousness as an essential side-effect of the computation, as addition is an essential side-effect of the sum of two numbers. Ok, I'm with you so far. But I'd like to get a better handle your concept of a computation in Platonia. Here's one way I've been picturing platonic computation: Imagine an infinite 2-dimensional grid filled with the binary digits of PI. Now imagine an infinite number of 2-dimensional grids on top of that one, with each grid containing the bits from the grid beneath it, as transformed by the Conway's Life rules. This is a description of a platonic computational object. Of course, my language is somewhat visual, but that's incidental. The point is, this is a precisely defined mathematical object. We can point at any cell in this infinite grid, and there is an answer to whether or not this bit is on or off, given our definitions. (More formally, we can define an abstract computational function that accepts any integer and returns the state of that bit, given all of our definitions.) Do you find this an acceptable way (not necessarily the only way) of describing a computational platonic object? How would you talk about how consciousness relates to the conscious-seeming patterns in this platonic object? Would you say that consciousness supervenes on those portions of this platonic computation? -- Kory --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: MGA 2
2008/11/28 Kory Heath [EMAIL PROTECTED]: I still feel like I don't have a handle on how you feel the move to Platonia solves these problems. If we imagine the mathematical description of filling a 3D grid with the binary digits of PI, somewhere within it we will find some patterns of bits that look as though they're following the rules to Conway's Life. If we see creatures in there, would they be conscious? What about the areas in that grid where we find the equivalent of Empty-Headed Alice, where most of the cells seem to be following the rules of Conway's Life, but the section where a creature's visual cortex ought to be is just filled with zeros? In other words, why doesn't the partial zombie problem still exist for us in Platonia? Asking questions like this about platonic objects isn't like asking the same questions about objects in a physical world. Abstract threeness is not a kind of picture of what we would recognise as threeness in the physical world: three objects, or five objects which could be seen as two lots of two and one lot of one object, or the Arabic numeral 3. Similarly, you can't point to a picture of a physical computer and ask whether that is giving rise to a particular computation in Platonia. Threeness, computations and consciousness exist eternally and necessarily, and can't be created, destroyed or localised. I realise this coming close to regarding consciousness as akin to the religious notion of a disembodied soul. But what are the alternatives? As I see it, if we don't discard computationalism the only alternative is to deny that consciousness exists at all, which seems to me incoherent. -- Stathis Papaioannou --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: MGA 2
On Nov 29, 2008, at 7:52 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: Threeness, computations and consciousness exist eternally and necessarily, and can't be created, destroyed or localised. I understand (I think) how threeness and computations exist eternally in Platonia, but I don't understand your Platonic notion of consciousness. Even after the move to Platonia, I'm still viewing consciousness as something fundamentally computational. Are you? -- Kory --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: MGA 2
2008/11/27 Brent Meeker [EMAIL PROTECTED]: Doesn't this antinomy arise because we equivocate on running Firefox. Do we mean a causal chain of events in the computer according to a certain program specification or do we mean the appearance on the screen of the same thing that the causal chain would have produced? We'd say no by the first meaning, but yes by the second. Obviously, there the question is not black-and-white. If the computer simply dropped a bit or two and miscolored a few pixels, no one would notice and no one would assert it wasn't running Firefox. So really, when we talk about running Firefox we are referring to a fuzzy, holistic process that admits of degrees. A functionally equivalent copy of Firefox behaves in the same way as the standard copy to which we are comparing it, giving the same output for a given input. Differences which the program can't know about are not important in this context, and the exact nature of the hardware - whether solid state or valve, causal or random - is one such difference. Of course, if the hardware is causal the program will run much more reliably, but if the random hardware runs appropriately through luck, I don't see how the program could know this. I'm developing a suspicion of arguments that say suppose by accident If we say that the (putative) possibility of something happening by accident destroys the relevance of it happening as part of a causal chain, we are, in a sense, rejecting the concept of causal chains and relations - and not just in consciousness, as your Firefox example illustrates. I would say that the significance of the causal chain is in reliability, not in the experience the computation has, such as it may be. I wrote putative above because this kind of thought experiment hypothesizes events whose probability is infinitesimal. If you take a finitist view, there is a lower bound to non-zero probabilities. Can't we stay finitist and say these improbable things are very likely to happen given a very big universe, say 3^^^3 metres across in Knuth's notation? It is still trivial in the sense that it could be said to instantiate all possible conscious worlds (at least up to some size limit). Since we don't know what is necessary to instantiate consciousness, this seems much more speculative than saying the block of marble instantiates all computations - which we already agree is true only in a trivial sense. We do know what it takes to instantiate consciousness: chemical reactions in the brain. If these chemical reactions are computable then an appropriate computation should also instantiate consciousness. If we consider only the case of inputless conscious beings, I still don't see why they won't be instantiated in randomness. as I see no reason why the consciousness of these observers should be contingent on the possibility of interaction with the environment containing the substrate of their implementation. My conclusion from this is that consciousness, in general, is not dependent on the orderly physical activity which is essential for the computations that we observe. Yet this is directly contradicted by those specific instances in which consciousness is interrupted by disrupting the physical activity. But if it's all a virtual reality, it isn't a concrete physical disruption that affects consciousness. It's just that the program takes a turn which manifests in the virtual world as brain and consciousness disruption. Rather, consciousness must be a property of the abstract computation itself, which leads to the conclusion that the physical world is probably a virtual reality generated by the big computer in Platonia, This seems to me to be jumping to a conclusion by examining only one side of the argument and, finding it flawed, embracing the contrary. Abstract computations are atemporal and don't have to be generated. So it amounts to saying that the physical world just IS in virtue of there being some mapping between the world and some computation. Yes. But I arrive at this conclusion because I can't think of a reason to constrain computation so that it is only implemented by conventional computers, and not by any and every random process. The Fading Qualia argument proves functionalism, assuming that the physical behaviour of the brain is computable (some people like Roger Penrose dispute this). Functionalism then leads to the conclusion that consciousness isn't dependent on physical activity, as discussed in the recent threads. So, either functionalism is wrong, or consciousness resides in the Platonic realm. Of there's something wrong with the argument that functionalism implies consciousness isn't dependent on physical activity. Yes, but I find the argument convincing. -- Stathis Papaioannou --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything
Re: MGA 2
On Nov 26, 2008, at 5:29 AM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: Yes. Suppose one of the components in my computer is defective but, with incredible luck, is outputting the appropriate signals due to thermal noise. Would it then make sense to say that the computer isn't really running Firefox, but only pretending to do so, reproducing the Firefox behaviour but lacking the special Firefox qualia-equivalent? It seems to me that this reasoning creates just as serious a problem for your perspective as it does for mine. Suppose we physically remove the defective component from the computer, but, with incredible luck, the surrounding components continue to act as though they were receiving the signals they would have received. Your experience of using Firefox remains the same, so (by your argument above) it shouldn't make sense to say that the computer isn't really running Firefox. But we can keep removing components until all that's left is a monitor that, with incredible luck due to thermal noise, is displaying the pixels that would have been displayed if your computer was actually functioning, doing things like displaying a mouse-pointer that (very improbably!) happens to move when you move your mouse, etc. This is, of course, just a recapitulation of the argument we've already been considering - the slide from Fully-Functional Alice to Lucky Alice to Empty-Headed Alice. I have an intuition that causality (or its logical equivalent in Platonia) is somehow important for consciousness. You argue that the the slide from Fully-Functional Alice to Lucky Alice (or Fully-Functional Firefox to Lucky Firefox) indicates that there's something wrong with this idea. However, you have an intuition that order is somehow important for consciousness. (Without trying to beg the question, I might use the term mere order, to indicate the fact that, for you, it doesn't matter whether the blinking bits in some hypothetical 2D array were generated by (say) a random process, it just matters that they display the requisite order.) But the slide from Lucky Alice to Empty-Headed Alice is just as problematic for that view as the slide from Fully- Functional Alice to Lucky Alice is for mine. My point isn't that your intuition must be incorrect. My point is that the above argument fails to show me why your mere order intuition is more correct than my real order intuition, since the argument is equally destructive to both intuitions. Instead of giving up your intuition, you make a move to Platonia. But in that new context, I think it still makes sense to ask if mere order (for instance, in the binary digits of PI) is enough for consciousness, and the Alice / Firefox thought experiments don't help me answer that question. If by Unification you mean the idea that two identical brains with identical input will result in only one consciousness, I don't see how this solves the conceptual problem of partial zombies. What would happen if an identical part of both brains were replaced with a non-concious but otherwise identically functioning equivalent? I was referring to the idea that my Conway's Life version of Bruno's MGA 2 may only present a problem for Duplicationists. If one believes that physically re-performing all of the Conway's Life computations would create a second experience of pain (assuming that there's a creature in there with that description), and if you *don't* believe that the act of playing the move back creates a second experience of pain, then you have a partial zombie problem. But it you accept Unification, the problem might go away (although I'm unsure of this). I still feel like I don't have a handle on how you feel the move to Platonia solves these problems. If we imagine the mathematical description of filling a 3D grid with the binary digits of PI, somewhere within it we will find some patterns of bits that look as though they're following the rules to Conway's Life. If we see creatures in there, would they be conscious? What about the areas in that grid where we find the equivalent of Empty-Headed Alice, where most of the cells seem to be following the rules of Conway's Life, but the section where a creature's visual cortex ought to be is just filled with zeros? In other words, why doesn't the partial zombie problem still exist for us in Platonia? -- Kory --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: MGA 2
Si nisi non esset perfectum quodlibet esset (if IF not existed everything would be perfect. Maybe I am a partial zombie for these things. (Mildly said). John M On Thu, Nov 27, 2008 at 4:36 PM, Kory Heath [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Nov 26, 2008, at 5:29 AM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: Yes. Suppose one of the components in my computer is defective but, with incredible luck, is outputting the appropriate signals due to thermal noise. Would it then make sense to say that the computer isn't really running Firefox, but only pretending to do so, reproducing the Firefox behaviour but lacking the special Firefox qualia-equivalent? It seems to me that this reasoning creates just as serious a problem for your perspective as it does for mine. Suppose we physically remove the defective component from the computer, but, with incredible luck, the surrounding components continue to act as though they were receiving the signals they would have received. Your experience of using Firefox remains the same, so (by your argument above) it shouldn't make sense to say that the computer isn't really running Firefox. But we can keep removing components until all that's left is a monitor that, with incredible luck due to thermal noise, is displaying the pixels that would have been displayed if your computer was actually functioning, doing things like displaying a mouse-pointer that (very improbably!) happens to move when you move your mouse, etc. This is, of course, just a recapitulation of the argument we've already been considering - the slide from Fully-Functional Alice to Lucky Alice to Empty-Headed Alice. I have an intuition that causality (or its logical equivalent in Platonia) is somehow important for consciousness. You argue that the the slide from Fully-Functional Alice to Lucky Alice (or Fully-Functional Firefox to Lucky Firefox) indicates that there's something wrong with this idea. However, you have an intuition that order is somehow important for consciousness. (Without trying to beg the question, I might use the term mere order, to indicate the fact that, for you, it doesn't matter whether the blinking bits in some hypothetical 2D array were generated by (say) a random process, it just matters that they display the requisite order.) But the slide from Lucky Alice to Empty-Headed Alice is just as problematic for that view as the slide from Fully- Functional Alice to Lucky Alice is for mine. My point isn't that your intuition must be incorrect. My point is that the above argument fails to show me why your mere order intuition is more correct than my real order intuition, since the argument is equally destructive to both intuitions. Instead of giving up your intuition, you make a move to Platonia. But in that new context, I think it still makes sense to ask if mere order (for instance, in the binary digits of PI) is enough for consciousness, and the Alice / Firefox thought experiments don't help me answer that question. If by Unification you mean the idea that two identical brains with identical input will result in only one consciousness, I don't see how this solves the conceptual problem of partial zombies. What would happen if an identical part of both brains were replaced with a non-concious but otherwise identically functioning equivalent? I was referring to the idea that my Conway's Life version of Bruno's MGA 2 may only present a problem for Duplicationists. If one believes that physically re-performing all of the Conway's Life computations would create a second experience of pain (assuming that there's a creature in there with that description), and if you *don't* believe that the act of playing the move back creates a second experience of pain, then you have a partial zombie problem. But it you accept Unification, the problem might go away (although I'm unsure of this). I still feel like I don't have a handle on how you feel the move to Platonia solves these problems. If we imagine the mathematical description of filling a 3D grid with the binary digits of PI, somewhere within it we will find some patterns of bits that look as though they're following the rules to Conway's Life. If we see creatures in there, would they be conscious? What about the areas in that grid where we find the equivalent of Empty-Headed Alice, where most of the cells seem to be following the rules of Conway's Life, but the section where a creature's visual cortex ought to be is just filled with zeros? In other words, why doesn't the partial zombie problem still exist for us in Platonia? -- Kory --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at
Re: MGA 2
2008/11/26 Kory Heath [EMAIL PROTECTED]: On Nov 24, 2008, at 5:40 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: The question turns on what is a computation and why it should have magical properties. For example, if someone flips the squares on a Life board at random and accidentally duplicates the Life rules does that mean the computation is carried out? I would say no. But of course, the real question is, Why does it matter? If I'm reading you correctly, you're taking the view that it's the pattern of bits that matters, not what created it (or caused it, or computed it, etc.) Yes. Suppose one of the components in my computer is defective but, with incredible luck, is outputting the appropriate signals due to thermal noise. Would it then make sense to say that the computer isn't really running Firefox, but only pretending to do so, reproducing the Firefox behaviour but lacking the special Firefox qualia-equivalent? It would help me if I had a clearer idea of how you view consciousness. I assume that, for you, if someone flips the squares on a Life board at random and creates the expected chaos, there's no consciousness there, but that there are certain configurations that could arise (randomly) that you would consider conscious. I assume that these patterns would show some kind of regularity - some kind of law-like behavior. In the first instance, yes. But then the problem arises that under a certain interpretation, the chaotic patterns could also be seen as implementing any given computation. A common response to this is that although it may be true in a trivial sense, as it is true that a block of marble contains every possible statue, it is useless to define something as a computation unless it can process information in a way that interacts with its environment. This seems reasonable so far, but what if the putative computation is of a virtual world with conscious observers? The trivial sense in which such a computation can be said to be hiding in chaos is no longer trivial, as I see no reason why the consciousness of these observers should be contingent on the possibility of interaction with the environment containing the substrate of their implementation. My conclusion from this is that consciousness, in general, is not dependent on the orderly physical activity which is essential for the computations that we observe. Rather, consciousness must be a property of the abstract computation itself, which leads to the conclusion that the physical world is probably a virtual reality generated by the big computer in Platonia, since there is no basis for believing that there is a concrete physical world separate from the necessarily existing virtual one. It's not easy for me to explain why I think it matters what kind of process (or in Platonia, what kind of abstract computation) generated that order. But it's also not easy for me to understand the alternative view. During those stretches of time when the random field of bits is creating a pattern that you would call conscious, what do you *mean* when you say it's conscious? By definition, you can't mean anything about how it's reacting to its environment, or that it's doing something because of something else, etc. I know what I mean by consciousness, being intimately associated with it myself, but I can't explain it. I think there is a partial zombie problem regardless of whether Unification or Duplication is accepted. Can you elaborate on this? What partial zombie problem do you see that Unification doesn't address? If by Unification you mean the idea that two identical brains with identical input will result in only one consciousness, I don't see how this solves the conceptual problem of partial zombies. What would happen if an identical part of both brains were replaced with a non-concious but otherwise identically functioning equivalent? And do you think that the move away from physical reality to mathematical reality solves that problem? If so, how? The Fading Qualia argument proves functionalism, assuming that the physical behaviour of the brain is computable (some people like Roger Penrose dispute this). Functionalism then leads to the conclusion that consciousness isn't dependent on physical activity, as discussed in the recent threads. So, either functionalism is wrong, or consciousness resides in the Platonic realm. -- Stathis Papaioannou --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: MGA 2
Stathis Papaioannou wrote: 2008/11/26 Kory Heath [EMAIL PROTECTED]: On Nov 24, 2008, at 5:40 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: The question turns on what is a computation and why it should have magical properties. For example, if someone flips the squares on a Life board at random and accidentally duplicates the Life rules does that mean the computation is carried out? I would say no. But of course, the real question is, Why does it matter? If I'm reading you correctly, you're taking the view that it's the pattern of bits that matters, not what created it (or caused it, or computed it, etc.) Yes. Suppose one of the components in my computer is defective but, with incredible luck, is outputting the appropriate signals due to thermal noise. Would it then make sense to say that the computer isn't really running Firefox, but only pretending to do so, reproducing the Firefox behaviour but lacking the special Firefox qualia-equivalent? Doesn't this antinomy arise because we equivocate on running Firefox. Do we mean a causal chain of events in the computer according to a certain program specification or do we mean the appearance on the screen of the same thing that the causal chain would have produced? We'd say no by the first meaning, but yes by the second. Obviously, there the question is not black-and-white. If the computer simply dropped a bit or two and miscolored a few pixels, no one would notice and no one would assert it wasn't running Firefox. So really, when we talk about running Firefox we are referring to a fuzzy, holistic process that admits of degrees. I'm developing a suspicion of arguments that say suppose by accident If we say that the (putative) possibility of something happening by accident destroys the relevance of it happening as part of a causal chain, we are, in a sense, rejecting the concept of causal chains and relations - and not just in consciousness, as your Firefox example illustrates. I wrote putative above because this kind of thought experiment hypothesizes events whose probability is infinitesimal. If you take a finitist view, there is a lower bound to non-zero probabilities. It would help me if I had a clearer idea of how you view consciousness. I assume that, for you, if someone flips the squares on a Life board at random and creates the expected chaos, there's no consciousness there, but that there are certain configurations that could arise (randomly) that you would consider conscious. I assume that these patterns would show some kind of regularity - some kind of law-like behavior. In the first instance, yes. But then the problem arises that under a certain interpretation, the chaotic patterns could also be seen as implementing any given computation. A common response to this is that although it may be true in a trivial sense, as it is true that a block of marble contains every possible statue, it is useless to define something as a computation unless it can process information in a way that interacts with its environment. This seems reasonable so far, but what if the putative computation is of a virtual world with conscious observers? The trivial sense in which such a computation can be said to be hiding in chaos is no longer trivial, It is still trivial in the sense that it could be said to instantiate all possible conscious worlds (at least up to some size limit). Since we don't know what is necessary to instantiate consciousness, this seems much more speculative than saying the block of marble instantiates all computations - which we already agree is true only in a trivial sense. as I see no reason why the consciousness of these observers should be contingent on the possibility of interaction with the environment containing the substrate of their implementation. My conclusion from this is that consciousness, in general, is not dependent on the orderly physical activity which is essential for the computations that we observe. Yet this is directly contradicted by those specific instances in which consciousness is interrupted by disrupting the physical activity. Rather, consciousness must be a property of the abstract computation itself, which leads to the conclusion that the physical world is probably a virtual reality generated by the big computer in Platonia, This seems to me to be jumping to a conclusion by examining only one side of the argument and, finding it flawed, embracing the contrary. Abstract computations are atemporal and don't have to be generated. So it amounts to saying that the physical world just IS in virtue of there being some mapping between the world and some computation. since there is no basis for believing that there is a concrete physical world separate from the necessarily existing virtual one. It's not easy for me to explain why I think it matters what kind of process (or in Platonia, what kind of abstract computation) generated that
Re: MGA 2
On Mon, Nov 24, 2008 at 12:28:45PM +0100, Bruno Marchal wrote: Le 24-nov.-08, à 02:39, Russell Standish a écrit : On Sun, Nov 23, 2008 at 03:59:02PM +0100, Bruno Marchal wrote: I would side with Kory that a looked up recording of conscious activity is not conscious. I agree with you. The point here is just that MEC+MAT implies it. This I don't follow. I would have thought it implies the opposite. MGA 1 shows that MEC+MAT implies lucky Alice is conscious (during the exam). OK? MGA 2 shows that MEC+MAT implies Alice is dreaming (and thus conscious) when the film is projected. OK? Right - I think we had a breakdown in communication. I thought you were asserting the opposite I take the looked recording as identical (with respect to the reasoning) with a projection of the movie. Of course I don't believe that a projection of a filmed computation is conscious 'qua computatio. It is so absurd that sometimes I end the Movie Graph Argument here. I mean I consider this equivalent to false, and thus as enough for showing COMP+MAT implies false. MGA 3 is intended for those who believes that the movie can be conscious qua computatio. Bruno The movie, in this case, is a very precise recording of the states of all of Alice's neurons and their interactions. Why wouldn't it be conscious? Someone once said to you don't confuse the territory with the map - and you very sagely asked what if the map is so detailed it is indistinguishable from the territory. A popular representation of the universe is a block universe, where all events exist in a 4D static representation that is forever timeless. A block universe contains conscious entities, who perceive time etc., at least according to your usual die hard materialist, don't you think? How does a block universe differ from your movie though? Note it is important not to rely on our intuition here. None of us has experience of movies with the level of resolution been discussed here. High definition movies are distinctly lame by comparison. I guess I'll need MGA3! -- A/Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Mathematics UNSW SYDNEY 2052 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Australiahttp://www.hpcoders.com.au --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: MGA 2
Thanks for providing me with even more motivations for MGA 3. I will try to do it as soon as possible. It could time because I am hesitating on the best way to proceed. I know that what is obvious for some is not for others, and vice versa ... That is why we do proof, to met universal criteria. Bruno Le 25-nov.-08, à 11:25, Russell Standish a écrit : On Mon, Nov 24, 2008 at 12:28:45PM +0100, Bruno Marchal wrote: Le 24-nov.-08, à 02:39, Russell Standish a écrit : On Sun, Nov 23, 2008 at 03:59:02PM +0100, Bruno Marchal wrote: I would side with Kory that a looked up recording of conscious activity is not conscious. I agree with you. The point here is just that MEC+MAT implies it. This I don't follow. I would have thought it implies the opposite. MGA 1 shows that MEC+MAT implies lucky Alice is conscious (during the exam). OK? MGA 2 shows that MEC+MAT implies Alice is dreaming (and thus conscious) when the film is projected. OK? Right - I think we had a breakdown in communication. I thought you were asserting the opposite I take the looked recording as identical (with respect to the reasoning) with a projection of the movie. Of course I don't believe that a projection of a filmed computation is conscious 'qua computatio. It is so absurd that sometimes I end the Movie Graph Argument here. I mean I consider this equivalent to false, and thus as enough for showing COMP+MAT implies false. MGA 3 is intended for those who believes that the movie can be conscious qua computatio. Bruno The movie, in this case, is a very precise recording of the states of all of Alice's neurons and their interactions. Why wouldn't it be conscious? Someone once said to you don't confuse the territory with the map - and you very sagely asked what if the map is so detailed it is indistinguishable from the territory. A popular representation of the universe is a block universe, where all events exist in a 4D static representation that is forever timeless. A block universe contains conscious entities, who perceive time etc., at least according to your usual die hard materialist, don't you think? How does a block universe differ from your movie though? Note it is important not to rely on our intuition here. None of us has experience of movies with the level of resolution been discussed here. High definition movies are distinctly lame by comparison. I guess I'll need MGA3! -- --- - A/Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Mathematics UNSW SYDNEY 2052 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Australiahttp://www.hpcoders.com.au --- - 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: MGA 2
On Nov 24, 2008, at 5:40 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: The question turns on what is a computation and why it should have magical properties. For example, if someone flips the squares on a Life board at random and accidentally duplicates the Life rules does that mean the computation is carried out? I would say no. But of course, the real question is, Why does it matter? If I'm reading you correctly, you're taking the view that it's the pattern of bits that matters, not what created it (or caused it, or computed it, etc.) It would help me if I had a clearer idea of how you view consciousness. I assume that, for you, if someone flips the squares on a Life board at random and creates the expected chaos, there's no consciousness there, but that there are certain configurations that could arise (randomly) that you would consider conscious. I assume that these patterns would show some kind of regularity - some kind of law-like behavior. It's not easy for me to explain why I think it matters what kind of process (or in Platonia, what kind of abstract computation) generated that order. But it's also not easy for me to understand the alternative view. During those stretches of time when the random field of bits is creating a pattern that you would call conscious, what do you *mean* when you say it's conscious? By definition, you can't mean anything about how it's reacting to its environment, or that it's doing something because of something else, etc. I think there is a partial zombie problem regardless of whether Unification or Duplication is accepted. Can you elaborate on this? What partial zombie problem do you see that Unification doesn't address? And do you think that the move away from physical reality to mathematical reality solves that problem? If so, how? -- Kory --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: MGA 2
Le 24-nov.-08, à 02:39, Russell Standish a écrit : On Sun, Nov 23, 2008 at 03:59:02PM +0100, Bruno Marchal wrote: I would side with Kory that a looked up recording of conscious activity is not conscious. I agree with you. The point here is just that MEC+MAT implies it. This I don't follow. I would have thought it implies the opposite. MGA 1 shows that MEC+MAT implies lucky Alice is conscious (during the exam). OK? MGA 2 shows that MEC+MAT implies Alice is dreaming (and thus conscious) when the film is projected. OK? I take the looked recording as identical (with respect to the reasoning) with a projection of the movie. Of course I don't believe that a projection of a filmed computation is conscious 'qua computatio. It is so absurd that sometimes I end the Movie Graph Argument here. I mean I consider this equivalent to false, and thus as enough for showing COMP+MAT implies false. MGA 3 is intended for those who believes that the movie can be conscious qua computatio. 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: MGA 2
Quentin Anciaux wrote: If infinities are at play... what is a MAT-history ? it can't even be written. Agreed. And that is why we should be more reluctant to drop COMP than to drop MAT. But IF we drop COMP, we could accept unwriteable MAT-histories. Cheers, Günther --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: MGA 2
On 24 Nov 2008, at 16:11, Günther Greindl wrote: Quentin Anciaux wrote: If infinities are at play... what is a MAT-history ? it can't even be written. Agreed. And that is why we should be more reluctant to drop COMP than to drop MAT. But IF we drop COMP, we could accept unwriteable MAT-histories. Yes. You could define precise mathematical unwriteable MAT-histories. Mathematical logicians have already the tools for managing Newtonian MAT-histories..You will need logic with non enumerable alphabet. Good luck with the non enumerable typo errors :) But no problem. I find this unplausible but it can be done consistently. COMP is a bit like consistency from Peano Arithmetic first person view on its third person description (its clothes or its Gödel Number, or its program): IF true, then its falsity is consistent. COMP is the ontic truth on YES DOCTOR, and it entails (provably with some vocabulary definition) the intrinsical RIGHT, for machines, to say NO to the doctor, and the ethical obligation to respect those who says NO. I have no problem with MAT believers, only with COMP+MAT believers. Note also that, even with just COMP the first person OM lives unwriteable stories, so those tools will be used, even in the cadre of COMP. And I can uderstand, through comp, the roots of the believe that comp is false. Actually there is a sense to say that from the first person point of view, comp *is* flase. The first person that you can (in a proper mathematical way) associated to a machine, already does not or cannot believe in the truth of comp. This I can elaborate later, but this needs more technics. 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: MGA 2
Hi Günther, I think you are correct, but allowing the observer to be mechanically described as obeying the wave equation (which solutions obeys to comp), Hmm well if you have a basis, yes; - but naked infinite-dimensional Hilbert Space (the everything in QM)? You put the finger on a problem I have with QM. I ill make a confession: I don't believe QM is really turing universal. The universal quantum rotation does not generate any interesting computations! I am open, say, to the idea that quantum universality needs measurement, and this could only exists internally. So the naked infinidimensional Hilbert space + the universal wave (rotation, unitary transformation) is a simpler ontology than arithmetical truth. Yet, even on the vaccum, from inside its gives all the non linearities you need to build arithmetic ... and consciousness. With MAT we do not only concentrate on OMs (as with COMP) but on all states (which maybe don't have an OM) I have no idea of what you try to say. With comp, we have an (non denombrable) infinity of computations, going through a (denombrable) infinity of states, and only few of them, I would say will have 1-OM role or 3-OM role. Even a fewer minority (a priori) will belongs to sharable computations (physical realities). I mean Everett is really SWE+COMP. Ok I have not looked at it this way yet - how does COMP enter the picture automatically in the Everett interpretation? I am missing something here. Do you mean because all the solutions are computable? (but see objection above) There are two ways COMP enter the picture in Everett or QM:: -When Everett showed the consistency of the intersubjective report in the case of many obervers doing experimentation together, he used machine-like observer. It has to assume the observer have capacities to distinguish 0, and 1, and have memories of result of experiments. In his long version paper everything is explained with some detail. - The solution of SWE are computable. They does not go out of the F_i and W_i, SWE does not refute Church thesis. With MAT we haven't (except bibles, myth, etc.). There is no standard notion of mat histories, I agree - that is why I think COMP is a better guess than MAT - although I still have some quibbles ... Quibbles happens. Sure :) deployment with comp). To have MAT correct, you have to accept not only actual infinities, but concrete actual infinities that you cannot approximate with Turing machine, nor with Turing Machine with oracle. You are a bit back to literal angels and fairies ... Yes, we agree. As I said many times, COMP is my favorite working *hypothesis*. It is my ... MAT has been a wonderful methodological assumption, but it has always being incoherent, or eliminativist on the mind. Ok. But what do you think of the following: Bertrand Russell's neutral monism (also Feigl and others) is an interesting metaphysical theory: one would have a basic mind-stuff - protoexperientials - which would follow the laws of comp. Ontically, all we need are 0, the successor and successor's law, addition and multiplication. With this you have already a sort of God which lost himself (agaian and again) in its creation ... I have no problem calling the comp ontic a neutral monism, if this is not used to eliminate again the first persons. It would not be a dualism, it would be mind-monism, but the objects being computed would not be OMs directly but some kind of basic mind-components - this idea is not new, in fact these objects would correspond to the dharmas of yogacara (and also Theravada Buddhism, but not so clearly there). (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Dharmas#Dharmas_in_Buddhist_phenomenology) Imo, the Yogacara is excellent. I have already given the reference of the wonderful book by Wendy Donger O'Flaherty: Dreams Illusion and Other Realities, which is good on that subject. There are many books comparing Plotinus and some Eastern conception of reality. One would lose the wonderful OM-COMP correspondence (which I think is an important feature of your COMP) OM, observer moment, is an expression, introduced in Bostrom. With comp, I have make an attempt to (re)define the OMs. The original first person PM of Bostrom can be recasted more or less in term of first person having proved some (sigma1) sentence. But this does not work well, you have to consider fiber on their extension, and so one (so it is a bit of a open problem which I bypass by the interview of the machine). 3-OM are more simple, they are just the sigma1 sentences. They correspond to the accessible states by the Universal Dovetailer. you can see the UD as a theorem prover proving all the true Sigma1 sentences. (Of course the lobian machine generated through those proofs prove much more complex sentences than the UD. I will have to come back on this, cf Searles Error in this
Re: MGA 2
On Nov 23, 2008, at 11:24 AM, Brent Meeker wrote: Kory Heath wrote: Or maybe I'm still misdiagnosing the problem. Is anyone arguing that, when you play back the lookup table like a movie, this counts as performing all of the Conway's Life computations a second time? Why shouldn't it? Please see my recent response to Bruno. If we perform a complex computation which results in placing the integer 5 into some memory variable, and then later we copy the contents of that memory variable to some other location in memory, in what sense are we re-performing the original complex computation? -- Kory --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: MGA 2
On Nov 24, 2008, at 3:28 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: MGA 1 shows that MEC+MAT implies lucky Alice is conscious (during the exam). OK? MGA 2 shows that MEC+MAT implies Alice is dreaming (and thus conscious) when the film is projected. OK? I don't mean to hold up the show, but I'm still stuck here. I don't understand how Lucky Alice should be viewed as conscious in the context of MEC+MAT. In a different message, you said this: But to go in the detail here would confront us with the not simple task of defining more precisely what is a computation, or what we will count has two identical computations in the deployment. As complex as that task may be, I'm beginning to think that I can't get past MGA 1 without tackling it. Imagine that you have a grid of bits, and at each tick of the clock, each bit is randomly turned on or off using a pseudorandom number generator with a very long periodicity. Imagine that for some stretch of time, the bits in the grid act as if they were following the rules to Conway's Life. Are Conway's Life computations in fact being performed? I thought obviously no. The majority answer here seems to be obviously yes. Suppose that we perform a very complex computation, and the result is the integer 5. Should any computation that results in 5 be viewed as performing the former computation? Chalmer's paper Does a Rock Implement Every Finite-State Automaton? seems directly relevant to all of these Lucky Alice thought experiments. (Is it?) I need to re-read that paper. I have no doubt that my thinking on these topics is confused. Where should I begin? -- Kory --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: MGA 2
Kory Heath wrote: On Nov 24, 2008, at 3:28 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: MGA 1 shows that MEC+MAT implies lucky Alice is conscious (during the exam). OK? MGA 2 shows that MEC+MAT implies Alice is dreaming (and thus conscious) when the film is projected. OK? I don't mean to hold up the show, but I'm still stuck here. I don't understand how Lucky Alice should be viewed as conscious in the context of MEC+MAT. In a different message, you said this: But to go in the detail here would confront us with the not simple task of defining more precisely what is a computation, or what we will count has two identical computations in the deployment. As complex as that task may be, I'm beginning to think that I can't get past MGA 1 without tackling it. Imagine that you have a grid of bits, and at each tick of the clock, each bit is randomly turned on or off using a pseudorandom number generator with a very long periodicity. Imagine that for some stretch of time, the bits in the grid act as if they were following the rules to Conway's Life. Are Conway's Life computations in fact being performed? I thought obviously no. The majority answer here seems to be obviously yes. Suppose that we perform a very complex computation, and the result is the integer 5. Should any computation that results in 5 be viewed as performing the former computation? Chalmer's paper Does a Rock Implement Every Finite-State Automaton? seems directly relevant to all of these Lucky Alice thought experiments. (Is it?) I need to re-read that paper. I have no doubt that my thinking on these topics is confused. Where should I begin? -- Kory I share your reservations, Kory. In outline, Burno's argument so far seems to be (I'm sure Bruno will correct me if I get this wrong): 1. Assume that consciousness supervenes on the material realization of some complex computations. 2. These computations could be performed stepwise by some machine that only does arithmetic and consciousness would still supervene. 3. The order of the steps matter, but not the time interval between steps. So even if the steps are discrete and separated in time consciousness will still supervene. 4. Since many different mechanisms can realize the sequence of steps the consciousness must supervene on the computation however the sequence is realized. 5. The sequence of steps could be realized by accident, i.e. a random number generator. 6. The sequence of steps could be realized by a recording of the original, conscious sequence. 7. 5 6 supra are absurd (i.e. false) therefore there is an implicit contradiction in 1. But I don't find this compelling. First, 5 6 are not contradictions - they just violate our intuitions about what consciousness should be like. But what is it about them that violate our intuitions? (a) They have divorced consciousness from it's context, i.e. it's potential or actual interaction with an environment. (b) They eliminate the temporal continuity, so that the consciousness is sliced into discrete observer moments which are regarded as states in a state machine. (c) They eliminate causal connections within the process that is supposed to realize consciousness. The causal connections are broken by imagining coincidents that are so improbable that their probablity of happening within the lifetime of the universe is infinitesimal - in other words at a level where we have no way to distinguish improbable from impossible. Having shown there is something counter-intuitive implicit in 1 thru 7 supra, we're invited to conclude that consciousness supervenes on pure, abstract computation which takes place in an arithmetical Platonia. But that also violates a lot of intuitions. Of course I'm not against violating intuitions, but I expect some predictive power in exchange. Brent --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: MGA 2
Kory Heath wrote: On Nov 23, 2008, at 11:24 AM, Brent Meeker wrote: Kory Heath wrote: Or maybe I'm still misdiagnosing the problem. Is anyone arguing that, when you play back the lookup table like a movie, this counts as performing all of the Conway's Life computations a second time? Why shouldn't it? Please see my recent response to Bruno. If we perform a complex computation which results in placing the integer 5 into some memory variable, and then later we copy the contents of that memory variable to some other location in memory, in what sense are we re-performing the original complex computation? That's different since, ex hypothesi, the original calculation was complex. So we can say just putting the answer, 5, in a register is not repeating the calculation based on some complexity measure of the process. Brent --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: MGA 2
2008/11/24 Kory Heath [EMAIL PROTECTED]: On Nov 22, 2008, at 6:52 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: Which leads again to the problem of partial zombies. What is your objection to saying that the looked up computation is also conscious? How would that be inconsistent with observation, or lead to logical contradiction? I can only answer this in the context of Bostrom's Duplication or Unification question. Let's say that within our Conway's Life universe, one particular creature feels a lot of pain. After the run is over, if we load the Initial State back into the array and iterate the rules again, is another experience of pain occurring? If you think yes, you accept Duplication by Bostrom's definition. If you say no, you accept Unification. I accept Unification, though for different reasons to those discussed in these threads. Duplication is more intuitive to me, and you might say that my thought experiment is aimed at Duplicationists. In that context, I don't understand why playing back the lookup table as a movie should create another experience of pain. None of the actual Conway's Life computations are being performed. We could just print them out on (very large) pieces of paper and flip them like a book. Is this supposed to generate an experience of pain? What if we just lay out all the pages in a row and move our eyes across them? What if we lay them out randomly and move our eyes across them? And so on. If the GOL results in consciousness, then I don't see how you could consistently claim that such activities don't generate consciousness. The question turns on what is a computation and why it should have magical properties. For example, if someone flips the squares on a Life board at random and accidentally duplicates the Life rules does that mean the computation is carried out? How would you know by observation if this was happening just by luck? You could argue that after a short period of observation the Life board would become completely disorganised, but what about the case of competent square-flipper who has a condition that might render him amnesic at any moment? What about the case of having a vast army of random square-flippers operating multiple boards, so that at least one of them necessarily follows the correct rules? I argue that if running the original computation a second time would create a second experience of pain, we can generate a partial zombie. Stathis, Brent, and Bruno have all suggested that there is no partial zombie problem in my argument. Is that because you all accept Unification? Or am I missing something else? I think there is a partial zombie problem regardless of whether Unification or Duplication is accepted. Interestingly, Nick Bostrom doesn't seem to have a problem with the idea of partial zombies: http://www.nickbostrom.com/papers/experience.pdf -- Stathis Papaioannou --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: MGA 2
On Nov 24, 2008, at 5:26 PM, Brent Meeker wrote: Kory Heath wrote: On Nov 23, 2008, at 11:24 AM, Brent Meeker wrote: Kory Heath wrote: Or maybe I'm still misdiagnosing the problem. Is anyone arguing that, when you play back the lookup table like a movie, this counts as performing all of the Conway's Life computations a second time? Why shouldn't it? Please see my recent response to Bruno. If we perform a complex computation which results in placing the integer 5 into some memory variable, and then later we copy the contents of that memory variable to some other location in memory, in what sense are we re-performing the original complex computation? That's different since, ex hypothesi, the original calculation was complex. So we can say just putting the answer, 5, in a register is not repeating the calculation based on some complexity measure of the process. But the Conway's Life calculations are complex in the sense that I meant the term. If we have a grid of cells filled with a pattern of bits, and we point at one particular cell and ask, If we iterate the Conway's Life rule on this grid a trillion times, will this bit be on or off?, we have to perform a bunch of computations to answer the question. If we store the results of those computations, and then later someone points at that same cell and asks the same question, and I just look up the answer, I don't see how we can say that that act of looking up the answer counts as re-performing the original computation. Are you arguing that it does? -- Kory --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: MGA 2
Kory Heath wrote: On Nov 24, 2008, at 5:26 PM, Brent Meeker wrote: Kory Heath wrote: On Nov 23, 2008, at 11:24 AM, Brent Meeker wrote: Kory Heath wrote: Or maybe I'm still misdiagnosing the problem. Is anyone arguing that, when you play back the lookup table like a movie, this counts as performing all of the Conway's Life computations a second time? Why shouldn't it? Please see my recent response to Bruno. If we perform a complex computation which results in placing the integer 5 into some memory variable, and then later we copy the contents of that memory variable to some other location in memory, in what sense are we re-performing the original complex computation? That's different since, ex hypothesi, the original calculation was complex. So we can say just putting the answer, 5, in a register is not repeating the calculation based on some complexity measure of the process. But the Conway's Life calculations are complex in the sense that I meant the term. If we have a grid of cells filled with a pattern of bits, and we point at one particular cell and ask, If we iterate the Conway's Life rule on this grid a trillion times, will this bit be on or off?, we have to perform a bunch of computations to answer the question. If we store the results of those computations, and then later someone points at that same cell and asks the same question, and I just look up the answer, I don't see how we can say that that act of looking up the answer counts as re-performing the original computation. Are you arguing that it does? -- Kory No, I'm saying it doesn't. Brent --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: MGA 2
2008/11/23 Jason Resch [EMAIL PROTECTED]: I would side with Kory that a looked up recording of conscious activity is not conscious. My argument being that static information has no implicit meaning because there are an infinite number of ways a bit string can be interpreted. However in a running program the values of the bits do have implicit meaning according to the rules of the state machine. One part of the system has meaning relative to another part. However, what if we consider the whole system? We could then say that the left half, computer A, has meaning relative to the right half, computer B. It doesn't matter that an outside observer could come up with infinitely many meanings, any more than it matters that an alien could up with infinitely many interpretations of an English sentence. -- Stathis Papaioannou --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: MGA 2
On 22 Nov 2008, at 17:27, Kory Heath wrote: On Nov 22, 2008, at 7:26 AM, Telmo Menezes wrote: Ok, but what if consciousness is a computational process that potentially depends on the entire state of the universe? Let's suppose for example that quantum particles are the fundamental building blocks, i.e. the hardware, and that consciousness is a computational process that emerges from their interactions. We still have MEC+MAT, and due to quantum entanglement, any quantum particle in the universe can potentially interfere in the consciousness computation. How can you store Bruno's film in such a universe? This is why I prefer to cast these thought experiments in terms of finite cellular automata. All of the issues you mention go away. (One can argue that finite cellular automata can't contain conscious beings, but that's just a rejection of MEC, which we're supposed to be keeping.) I'm not entirely sure I understand the details of Bruno's Movie-Graph (yet), so I don't know if it's equivalent to the following thought experiment: It seems to me equivalent indeed, in the case you project a part of the movie on the broken part of the optical boolean graph. Let's say that we run a computer program that allocates a very large two-dimensional array, fills it with a special Initial State (which is hard-coded into the program), and then executes the rules of Conway's Life on the array for a certain number of iterations. Let's say that the resulting universe contains creatures that any garden-variety mechanist would agree are fully conscious. Let's say that we run the universe for at least enough iterations to allow the creatures to move around, say a few things, experience a few things, etc. Finally, let's say that we store the results of all of our calculations in a (much larger) area of memory, so that we can look up what each bit did at each tick of the clock. Now let's say that we play back the stored results of our calculations, like a movie. At each tick of the clock t, we just copy the bits from time t of our our stored memory into our two-dimensional array. There are no Conway's Life calculations going on here. We're just copying bits, one time-slice at a time, from our stored memory into our original grid. It is difficult for a mechanist to argue that any consciousness is happening here. It's functionally equivalent to just printing out each time-slice onto a (huge) piece of paper, and flipping through those pages like a picture book and watching the animated playback. It's hard for a mechanist to argue that this style of flipping pages in a picture book can create consciousness. Now let's imagine that we compute the Conway's Life universe again - we load the Initial State into the grid, and then iteratively apply the Conway's Life rule to the grid. However, for some percentage of the cells in the grid, instead of looking at the neighboring cells and updating according to the Conway's Life rule, we instead just pull the data from the lookup table that we created in the previous run. If we apply the Conway's Life rule to all the cells, it seems like the creatures in the grid ought to be conscious. If we don't apply the Life rule to any of the cells, but just pull the data from our previously-created lookup table, it seems like the creatures in the grid are not conscious. But if we apply the Life rule to half of the cells and pull the other half from the lookup table, there will (probably) be some creature in the grid who has half of the cells in its brain being computed by the Life rule, and half being pulled from the lookup table. What's the status of this creature's consciousness? -- Kory 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: MGA 2
On 22 Nov 2008, at 21:45, Brent Meeker wrote: Telmo Menezes wrote: Quentin, Ok, but what if consciousness is a computational process that potentially depends on the entire state of the universe? Let's suppose for example that quantum particles are the fundamental building blocks, i.e. the hardware, and that consciousness is a computational process that emerges from their interactions. We still have MEC+MAT, and due to quantum entanglement, any quantum particle in the universe can potentially interfere in the consciousness computation. How can you store Bruno's film in such a universe? Telmo. But brain functions are essentially classical (see Tegmark's paper). Thought would be impossible if quantum entanglement was more that a perturbation. From a classical viewpoint, your brain can only be causally affected by a finite portion of the universe. Right. And , even if the brain is a quantum computer, the argument will go through, if only because a quantum computer can be simulated by a classical computer (albeit very slowly: but this is not relevant, the UD is very slow but first person cannot be aware of that). As Quentin suggested you have to identify yourself completely with the entire quantum multiverse to prevent the conclusion, and even in that case, this has to be extracted from the MEC part of the MEC+MAT hypothesis, which is the point. But yes in that case you can postulate a sort of primitive matter having some relevance with your consciousness. (Making them both very mysterious, and making their link also rather mysterious, btw). MGA 1 and MGA 2 are sometimes confronted with super ad hoc move, which, from a logical point of view have to be taken into account. I expect I will have to go up to MGA 4, but I can imagine making some MGA 5 to make such move invalid, relatively to some inductive rationality principle explicited. Sort of a vaccine against such super ad hoc move. They appears also against many worlds, against experience testing Bell's inequality, etc. Also if you want to use entanglement throughout the whole universe (or multiverse), you will have difficulties in relating measurements and conscious memory of experiences (but of course this is not yet solved the pure comp view), I think. So Tegmark work is not really relevant here. A good thing for me because, although I think and tend to believe that Tegmark is accurate, I don't have the personal knowledge of practical quantum mechanics to be assure personally about the meaningfulness of the chosen unities. 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: MGA 2
On 22 Nov 2008, at 22:10, Brent Meeker wrote: If we apply the Conway's Life rule to all the cells, it seems like the creatures in the grid ought to be conscious. If we don't apply the Life rule to any of the cells, but just pull the data from our previously-created lookup table, it seems like the creatures in the grid are not conscious. But if we apply the Life rule to half of the cells and pull the other half from the lookup table, there will (probably) be some creature in the grid who has half of the cells in its brain being computed by the Life rule, and half being pulled from the lookup table. What's the status of this creature's consciousness? I don't think it's a relevant distinction. Even when the game-of- life is running on the computer the adjacent cells are not physically causing the changes from on to off and vice versa - that function is via the program implemented in the computer memory and cpu. So why should it make a difference whether those state changes are decided by gates in the cpu or a huge look-up table? I agree. 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: MGA 2
On Nov 22, 2008, at 1:56 PM, Brent Meeker wrote: But how would they agree on this? If we knew the answer to that we wouldn't need to be considering these (nomologically) impossible thought experiments. They would use the same criteria that they use to decide that humans are conscious in our own world, which would be a combination of observing outward behavior (Turing-Test), and observing brain states. In one sense, that would be harder, because the conscious beings in the Life universe will look very different than us. In another sense it would be easier, because they'd have access to every bit of the Life universe. Am I confusing mechanism with something else? Functionalism? Computationalism? -- Kory --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: MGA 2
On Nov 22, 2008, at 6:52 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: Which leads again to the problem of partial zombies. What is your objection to saying that the looked up computation is also conscious? How would that be inconsistent with observation, or lead to logical contradiction? I can only answer this in the context of Bostrom's Duplication or Unification question. Let's say that within our Conway's Life universe, one particular creature feels a lot of pain. After the run is over, if we load the Initial State back into the array and iterate the rules again, is another experience of pain occurring? If you think yes, you accept Duplication by Bostrom's definition. If you say no, you accept Unification. Duplication is more intuitive to me, and you might say that my thought experiment is aimed at Duplicationists. In that context, I don't understand why playing back the lookup table as a movie should create another experience of pain. None of the actual Conway's Life computations are being performed. We could just print them out on (very large) pieces of paper and flip them like a book. Is this supposed to generate an experience of pain? What if we just lay out all the pages in a row and move our eyes across them? What if we lay them out randomly and move our eyes across them? And so on. I argue that if running the original computation a second time would create a second experience of pain, we can generate a partial zombie. Stathis, Brent, and Bruno have all suggested that there is no partial zombie problem in my argument. Is that because you all accept Unification? Or am I missing something else? -- Kory --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: MGA 2
On 23 Nov 2008, at 04:46, Jason Resch wrote: On Sat, Nov 22, 2008 at 8:52 PM, Stathis Papaioannou [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: 2008/11/23 Kory Heath [EMAIL PROTECTED]: If we apply the Conway's Life rule to all the cells, it seems like the creatures in the grid ought to be conscious. If we don't apply the Life rule to any of the cells, but just pull the data from our previously-created lookup table, it seems like the creatures in the grid are not conscious. But if we apply the Life rule to half of the cells and pull the other half from the lookup table, there will (probably) be some creature in the grid who has half of the cells in its brain being computed by the Life rule, and half being pulled from the lookup table. What's the status of this creature's consciousness? Which leads again to the problem of partial zombies. What is your objection to saying that the looked up computation is also conscious? How would that be inconsistent with observation, or lead to logical contradiction? I would side with Kory that a looked up recording of conscious activity is not conscious. I agree with you. The point here is just that MEC+MAT implies it. My argument being that static information has no implicit meaning because there are an infinite number of ways a bit string can be interpreted. The point is, or will be, that as far as the string is complex enough to part of some of history, and to bet on some continuation of that history, she will not feel statics at all, from her point of view. However in a running program the values of the bits do have implicit meaning according to the rules of the state machine. Relatively to you, and relatively to most common probable history/ computation that you share with that running program. What makes this weird is that in one respect our universe might be considered a 4-d recording, containing a record of computations performed by neurons and brains across one of its dimensions. Perhaps this is further evidence in support of Bruno's theory: mind cannot exist in a physical universe because it is just a recording of a computation, and only the actual computation itself can create consciousness. I would say that all computations exist (already in arihmetical truth), and actual is a possible computation as seen from inside. Actuallity last as long as consistency. Consciousness differentiates on the path, as seen in the path. This is more related to the first steps than UDA than MGA. If we abandon physical supervenience, we have to define a sufficiently good notion of computational supervenience. But the UD and its deployment gives not much choice. We have to go from consciousness at (dx,dt) = physical state at (dx, dt)(sup- phys) to consciousness of (dx, dt)= computational state,(sup-comp) And we have to explain the appearance of both consciousness at (dx,dt) and physical state at (dx, dt) from sup-comp. With a naïve view on computations, there are too much white rabbits, but computer science and logic can be used to show this issue is far from simple. 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: MGA 2
We have to go from consciousness at (dx,dt) Since when can consciousness be an instantaneous event? Anna --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: MGA 2
On Nov 22, 2008, at 1:10 PM, Brent Meeker wrote: So why should it make a difference whether those state changes are decided by gates in the cpu or a huge look-up table? The difference is in the number of times that the relevant computation was physically implemented. When you query the lookup table to get a bit, you are not performing the computation again. You're just viewing the result of the computation you did earlier. It seems to me that this matters for Duplicationists, but maybe not for Unificationists. Or maybe I'm still misdiagnosing the problem. Is anyone arguing that, when you play back the lookup table like a movie, this counts as performing all of the Conway's Life computations a second time? In that case there would be nothing problematic about this thought experiment for Duplicationists or Unificationists. But I don't see how playing back the lookup table can count as implementing the Conway's Life computations. -- Kory --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: MGA 2
On 23 Nov 2008, at 16:06, A. Wolf wrote: We have to go from consciousness at (dx,dt) Since when can consciousness be an instantaneous event? Oops! replace with (Dx,Dt). I have no deltas. Bruno Anna 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: MGA 2
On 23 Nov 2008, at 15:48, Kory Heath wrote: On Nov 22, 2008, at 6:52 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: Which leads again to the problem of partial zombies. What is your objection to saying that the looked up computation is also conscious? How would that be inconsistent with observation, or lead to logical contradiction? I can only answer this in the context of Bostrom's Duplication or Unification question. Let's say that within our Conway's Life universe, one particular creature feels a lot of pain. After the run is over, if we load the Initial State back into the array and iterate the rules again, is another experience of pain occurring? If you think yes, you accept Duplication by Bostrom's definition. If you say no, you accept Unification. Duplication is more intuitive to me, and you might say that my thought experiment is aimed at Duplicationists. In that context, I don't understand why playing back the lookup table as a movie should create another experience of pain. None of the actual Conway's Life computations are being performed. We could just print them out on (very large) pieces of paper and flip them like a book. Is this supposed to generate an experience of pain? What if we just lay out all the pages in a row and move our eyes across them? What if we lay them out randomly and move our eyes across them? And so on. I argue that if running the original computation a second time would create a second experience of pain, we can generate a partial zombie. Stathis, Brent, and Bruno have all suggested that there is no partial zombie problem in my argument. Is that because you all accept Unification? Or am I missing something else? Unification, I would say. But we have to be careful, unification becomes duplication or n-plication if the computations diverge. This does not change the content of the experience of the person, which remains unique, but it can change the relative personal probabilities of such content. I wrote once: Y = || (multiplication of the future secures the past). Third person bifurcation of histories/computations = first person differentiation of consciousness. But to go in the detail here would confront us with the not simple task of defining more precisely what is a computation, or what we will count has two identical computations in the deployment. Eventually I bypass this hard question by asking directly what sound Lobian machines can think about that ... leading to AUDA (arithmetical uda). But unification, in Bostrom's sense, is at play, from the first person experience. Alice dreamed of the Mushroom only once. But if we wake up by projecting the end of the movie on an operational optical boolean graph, simultaneously (or not) in Washington and in Moscow, then, although the experience of the dreams remains unique, the experience of remembering the dream will be multiplied by two. Indeed one in Moscow, once in Washington. Bruno -- Kory 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: MGA 2
Since when can consciousness be an instantaneous event? Oops! replace with (Dx,Dt). I have no deltas. Yeah, but still. I don't think consciousness can be freeze-framed mathematically like this. I haven't been reading the conversation, though...I should probably try to catch up. Anna --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: MGA 2
On 23 Nov 2008, at 17:23, A. Wolf wrote:
Since when can consciousness be an instantaneous event?
Oops! replace with (Dx,Dt). I have no deltas.
Yeah, but still. I don't think consciousness can be freeze-framed
mathematically like this. I haven't been reading the conversation,
though...I should probably try to catch up.
You are welcome.
You seem to know a bit of logic, so you could read the paper UDA +
AUDA paper here:
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/publications/SANE2004MARCHALAbstract.html
Well you arrive at the end (of the first part?) of a more than 10
years conversation but it is NEVER too late :)
I am currently explaining the Movie Graph Argument, which is the 8th
step of the Universal Dovetailer Argument. The UDA is supposed to
show, or shows, that mechanism and physicalism (or materialism,
naturalism) are incompatible. It shows that if mechanism is true,
physics has to be derived from numbers and logic.
The AUDA is about the same explained to, or by, a lobian machine,
which is a universal machine knowing she is universal (or if you know
logic: a Sigma_1 theorem prover which can prove all sentences of the
shape S - Bew('S'), S Sigma_1. Peano Arithmetic, the formal theory,
can readily be transformed into such a finitely presentable machine.
From this we can extract a logic of the observable proposition and
compare with the empirical quantum logic, making comp testable, and
already tested on its most weird consequences, retrospectively.
Bruno
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
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Re: MGA 2
Kory Heath wrote: On Nov 22, 2008, at 1:10 PM, Brent Meeker wrote: So why should it make a difference whether those state changes are decided by gates in the cpu or a huge look-up table? The difference is in the number of times that the relevant computation was physically implemented. When you query the lookup table to get a bit, you are not performing the computation again. You're just viewing the result of the computation you did earlier. It seems to me that this matters for Duplicationists, but maybe not for Unificationists. Or maybe I'm still misdiagnosing the problem. Is anyone arguing that, when you play back the lookup table like a movie, this counts as performing all of the Conway's Life computations a second time? Why shouldn't it? Suppose your recording device uses a compression algorithm and suppose the compression algorithm is so efficient the compressed recording is no bigger than the Conway's Life program plus the initial state information. Brent In that case there would be nothing problematic about this thought experiment for Duplicationists or Unificationists. But I don't see how playing back the lookup table can count as implementing the Conway's Life computations. -- Kory --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: MGA 2
Bruno Marchal wrote: On 23 Nov 2008, at 15:48, Kory Heath wrote: On Nov 22, 2008, at 6:52 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: Which leads again to the problem of partial zombies. What is your objection to saying that the looked up computation is also conscious? How would that be inconsistent with observation, or lead to logical contradiction? I can only answer this in the context of Bostrom's Duplication or Unification question. Let's say that within our Conway's Life universe, one particular creature feels a lot of pain. After the run is over, if we load the Initial State back into the array and iterate the rules again, is another experience of pain occurring? If you think yes, you accept Duplication by Bostrom's definition. If you say no, you accept Unification. Duplication is more intuitive to me, and you might say that my thought experiment is aimed at Duplicationists. In that context, I don't understand why playing back the lookup table as a movie should create another experience of pain. None of the actual Conway's Life computations are being performed. We could just print them out on (very large) pieces of paper and flip them like a book. Is this supposed to generate an experience of pain? What if we just lay out all the pages in a row and move our eyes across them? What if we lay them out randomly and move our eyes across them? And so on. I argue that if running the original computation a second time would create a second experience of pain, we can generate a partial zombie. Stathis, Brent, and Bruno have all suggested that there is no partial zombie problem in my argument. Is that because you all accept Unification? Or am I missing something else? Unification, I would say. But we have to be careful, unification becomes duplication or n-plication if the computations diverge. This does not change the content of the experience of the person, which remains unique, but it can change the relative personal probabilities of such content. I wrote once: Y = || (multiplication of the future secures the past). Third person bifurcation of histories/computations = first person differentiation of consciousness. But to go in the detail here would confront us with the not simple task of defining more precisely what is a computation, or what we will count has two identical computations in the deployment. Eventually I bypass this hard question by asking directly what sound Lobian machines can think about that ... leading to AUDA (arithmetical uda). But unification, in Bostrom's sense, is at play, from the first person experience. Alice dreamed of the Mushroom only once. But if we wake up by projecting the end of the movie on an operational optical boolean graph, simultaneously (or not) in Washington and in Moscow, then, although the experience of the dreams remains unique, the experience of remembering the dream will be multiplied by two. Indeed one in Moscow, once in Washington. Why do they count as two instances? Because they supervene on physical processes that are spacially distinct? That would assume that spacetime is fundamental. Or is it because you assume that remembering the dream isn't distinct process but must be mixed with other experiences related to the location? Brent Brent --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: MGA 2
On 23 Nov 2008, at 21:21, Brent Meeker wrote: Bruno Marchal wrote: On 23 Nov 2008, at 15:48, Kory Heath wrote: On Nov 22, 2008, at 6:52 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: Which leads again to the problem of partial zombies. What is your objection to saying that the looked up computation is also conscious? How would that be inconsistent with observation, or lead to logical contradiction? I can only answer this in the context of Bostrom's Duplication or Unification question. Let's say that within our Conway's Life universe, one particular creature feels a lot of pain. After the run is over, if we load the Initial State back into the array and iterate the rules again, is another experience of pain occurring? If you think yes, you accept Duplication by Bostrom's definition. If you say no, you accept Unification. Duplication is more intuitive to me, and you might say that my thought experiment is aimed at Duplicationists. In that context, I don't understand why playing back the lookup table as a movie should create another experience of pain. None of the actual Conway's Life computations are being performed. We could just print them out on (very large) pieces of paper and flip them like a book. Is this supposed to generate an experience of pain? What if we just lay out all the pages in a row and move our eyes across them? What if we lay them out randomly and move our eyes across them? And so on. I argue that if running the original computation a second time would create a second experience of pain, we can generate a partial zombie. Stathis, Brent, and Bruno have all suggested that there is no partial zombie problem in my argument. Is that because you all accept Unification? Or am I missing something else? Unification, I would say. But we have to be careful, unification becomes duplication or n-plication if the computations diverge. This does not change the content of the experience of the person, which remains unique, but it can change the relative personal probabilities of such content. I wrote once: Y = || (multiplication of the future secures the past). Third person bifurcation of histories/ computations = first person differentiation of consciousness. But to go in the detail here would confront us with the not simple task of defining more precisely what is a computation, or what we will count has two identical computations in the deployment. Eventually I bypass this hard question by asking directly what sound Lobian machines can think about that ... leading to AUDA (arithmetical uda). But unification, in Bostrom's sense, is at play, from the first person experience. Alice dreamed of the Mushroom only once. But if we wake up by projecting the end of the movie on an operational optical boolean graph, simultaneously (or not) in Washington and in Moscow, then, although the experience of the dreams remains unique, the experience of remembering the dream will be multiplied by two. Indeed one in Moscow, once in Washington. Why do they count as two instances? Because they supervene on physical processes that are spacially distinct? That would assume that spacetime is fundamental. Or is it because you assume that remembering the dream isn't distinct process but must be mixed with other experiences related to the location? The last one. Unless the person has not yet opened the door of the reconstitution box, the experience of remembering the dream in Washington is a different experience of the remembering the dream in Moscow. For reason of climate, people to who relating the dream, etc. The two computations executed by Alice brain diverge because they have different inputs. 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: MGA 2
Bruno, From this we can extract a logic of the observable proposition and compare with the empirical quantum logic, making comp testable, and already tested on its most weird consequences, retrospectively. you could refute COMP (MEC) if it would contradict empirical QM, but QM (and especially many worlds) is also compatible with MAT (and NOT COMP). These would be Tegmark's Level I and II universes - infinite physical (or mathematical physicalist as defined by Kory) universes with matter permuting in all possible ways. If you then let consciousness supervene on matter (but not in a COMP way (see MGA) - maybe because of local infinities or whatever) and with UNIFICATION you would also get a many worlds scenario (also in the sense that for a 1st person one would have to look at the MAT-histories running through every OM) In your posts you do seem to have a preference for COMP (although you say you don't have a position ;-) but I think you definitely lean more to COMP than to MAT - are there reasons for this or is it only a personal predilection? Cheers, Günther p.s.: I am looking forward to your further MGA posts (how far will they go, you have hinted up to MGA 5?) and the ensuing discussion, I have very much enjoyed reading all this stuff. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: MGA 2
Hi, Le dimanche 23 novembre 2008 à 22:09 +0100, Günther Greindl a écrit : Bruno, From this we can extract a logic of the observable proposition and compare with the empirical quantum logic, making comp testable, and already tested on its most weird consequences, retrospectively. you could refute COMP (MEC) if it would contradict empirical QM, but QM (and especially many worlds) is also compatible with MAT (and NOT COMP). It is. These would be Tegmark's Level I and II universes - infinite physical (or mathematical physicalist as defined by Kory) universes with matter permuting in all possible ways. That was my point about finite block of universe... even if the universe is infinite every finite block of it contains finite numbers of matter hence a finite numbers (however big it is) of possible permutations of the matter within it (even if you take the maximal permutations of fully filled block of matters). That's what I call the divx arguments :) What you see (or what any human could see) however big is the resolution of the picture is still finite data. Example, imagine that our eyes resolution is 10⁵x10⁵ and we are able to see 10³ pictures per second... then a human lifetime of seeing is encodable in a string of 10⁵x10⁵x3x10³x60x60x24x365x~100 bits (3 for 3 bytes per pixel for 16.5 millions color not even discernable by us, 100 for a 100 years of lifetime) not taking compression in account.. it's (very⁵) big but finite (and I did take a very⁵ high resolution) and all humans seeing will be encodable with all permutations available on a string of this length. Which is even bigger but still finite. If you then let consciousness supervene on matter (but not in a COMP way (see MGA) - maybe because of local infinities or whatever) and with UNIFICATION you would also get a many worlds scenario (also in the sense that for a 1st person one would have to look at the MAT-histories running through every OM) If infinities are at play... what is a MAT-history ? it can't even be written. In your posts you do seem to have a preference for COMP (although you say you don't have a position ;-) but I think you definitely lean more to COMP than to MAT - are there reasons for this or is it only a personal predilection? Cheers, Günther p.s.: I am looking forward to your further MGA posts (how far will they go, you have hinted up to MGA 5?) and the ensuing discussion, I have very much enjoyed reading all this stuff. Regards, Quentin -- All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: MGA 2
On 23 Nov 2008, at 22:09, Günther Greindl wrote: Bruno, From this we can extract a logic of the observable proposition and compare with the empirical quantum logic, making comp testable, and already tested on its most weird consequences, retrospectively. you could refute COMP (MEC) if it would contradict empirical QM, but QM (and especially many worlds) is also compatible with MAT (and NOT COMP). I think you are correct, but allowing the observer to be mechanically described as obeying the wave equation (which solutions obeys to comp), is the main motivation for the Many-World. Why not saying directly that the mind collapse the wave then? I mean Everett is really SWE+COMP. (or weakening of COMP). I think that the wave collapse has been invented for both keeping the physical universe unique, but also making the observer beyond science. These would be Tegmark's Level I and II universes - infinite physical (or mathematical physicalist as defined by Kory) universes with matter permuting in all possible ways. If you then let consciousness supervene on matter (but not in a COMP way (see MGA) - maybe because of local infinities or whatever) and with UNIFICATION you would also get a many worlds scenario (also in the sense that for a 1st person one would have to look at the MAT-histories running through every OM) In your posts you do seem to have a preference for COMP (although you say you don't have a position ;-) but I think you definitely lean more to COMP than to MAT - are there reasons for this or is it only a personal predilection? It is the same reason why someone in the dark can be searching its key only under the lamp. Elsewhere there is no chance he finds it. With comp we do have a theory of mind. With MAT we haven't (except bibles, myth, etc.). There is no standard notion of mat histories, no satisfying notion of wholeness (like the deployment with comp). To have MAT correct, you have to accept not only actual infinities, but concrete actual infinities that you cannot approximate with Turing machine, nor with Turing Machine with oracle. You are a bit back to literal angels and fairies ... Of course MAT + not COMP is consistent. Many catholic theological reading of Aristotelian based Matter theory propose similar idea making the soul material at some point. To my knowledge, Penrose is the only scientist which endorses this kind of views, allowing gravitation to play a role in the collapse. Its motivation from Godel's theorem are not correct, but its main NON COMP or NOT MAT starting intuition is valid with respect to MGA-UDA. As I said many times, COMP is my favorite working *hypothesis*. It is my bread (or should be ...). I like it because it makes a part of philosophy or theology a science. We can doubt it, discuss it, and even refute it, with some chance, or confirme. MAT has been a wonderful methodological assumption, but it has always being incoherent, or eliminativist on the mind. p.s.: I am looking forward to your further MGA posts (how far will they go, you have hinted up to MGA 5?) and the ensuing discussion, I have very much enjoyed reading all this stuff. Thanks. And so you believe that MAT+MEC makes Alice conscious through the projection of its brain movie! You really want me to show this is absurd. It is not so easy, and few people find this necessary, but I will do asap (MGA 3). MGA 4 is for those who make a special sort of objection which has not yet appeared, or those who will make a special objection to MGA 3, so ..., well I will do it because it puts more light on the meaning of the computational supervenience thesis. But MGA 4 is really ... Maudlin. And MGA 5 should be just a form of OCCAM razor, but I don't think this will be necessary, except perhaps for some last Advocate's devils and theoreticians of the Conspiracies :) I will due this hopefully this week. Thanks for the patience. 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: MGA 2
On Sun, Nov 23, 2008 at 03:59:02PM +0100, Bruno Marchal wrote: I would side with Kory that a looked up recording of conscious activity is not conscious. I agree with you. The point here is just that MEC+MAT implies it. This I don't follow. I would have thought it implies the opposite. -- A/Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Mathematics UNSW SYDNEY 2052 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Australiahttp://www.hpcoders.com.au --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: MGA 2
Bruno, Conserving MEC+MAT, one could argue that no isolation from the environment is possible, even while dreaming. Even if you put Alice in a sensory isolation tank, there is still the possibility that interactions with the entire environment are an essential part of the process that produces consciousness. For example, through quantum entanglement. In the limit, there is the possibility that the entire universe is necessary for her consciousness to arise, and the film experiment becomes impossible because you would have to film the entire sequence of states of the universe during her dream and play them back. Obviously, the same universe where the dream takes place cannot also contain the film (you get infinite recursion). I can't see a way out of this in a single universe. What do you think? Cheers, Telmo Menezes. On Fri, Nov 21, 2008 at 6:33 PM, Bruno Marchal [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: MGA 2 The second step of the MGA, consists in making a change to MGA 1 so that we don't have to introduce that unreasonable amount of cosmic luck, or of apparent randomness. It shows the lucky aspect of the coming information is not relevant. Jason thought on this sequel. Let us consider again Alice, which, as you know as an artificial brain, made of logic gates. Now Alice is sleeping, and doing a dream---like Carroll's original Alice. Today we know that a REM dream is a conscious experience, or better an experience of consciousness, thanks to the work of Hearne Laberge, Dement, etc. Malcolm's theory of dream, where dream are not conscious, has been properly refuted by Hearne and Laberge experiences. (All reference can be found in the bibliography of my long thesis. Ask me if you have problem to find them. I am using a dream experience instead of an experience of awakeness for having less technical problems and being shorter on the relevant points. I let you do the change as an exercise if you want. If you have understood UDA up to the sixth step, such change are easy to do. To convince Brent Meeker, you will have to put the environment, actually its digital functional part in the generalized brain, making the general setting much longer to describe. (If the part of the environment needed for consciousness to proceed is not Turing emulable, then you already negate MEC of course). The dream will facilitate the experience. It is known that in a REM dream we are paralyzed (no outputs), we are cut out from the environment: (no inputs, well not completely because you would not hear the awakening clock, but let us not care about this, or do the exercise above), ... and we are hallucinating: the dream is a natural sort of video game. It shows that the brain is at least a natural virtual reality generator. OK? Alice has already an artificial digital brain. This consists in a boolean tridimensional graph with nodes being NOR gates, and vertex being wires. For the MEC+MAT believer, the dream is produced by the physical activity of the circular digital information processing done by that boolean graph. With MEC, obviously all what matter is that the boolean graph processes the right computation, and we don't have to take into account the precise position of the gates in space. They are not relevant for the computation (if things like that were relevant we would already have said no to the doctor. So we can topologically deform Alice boolean graph brain and project it on a plane so that no gates overlap. Some wires will cross, but (exercise) the crossing of the wires function can itself be implemented with NOR gates. (A solution of that problem, posed by Dewdney, has been given in the Scientific American Journal (and is displayed in Conscience et Mécanisme with the reference). So Alice's brain can be made into a plane boolean graph. Also, a MEC+MAT believer should not insist on the electrical nature of the communication by wires, nor on the electrical nature of the processing of the information by the gates, so that we can use optical information instead. Laser beams play the role of the wires, and some destructive interference can be used for the NOR. The details are not relevant, given that I am not presenting a realist experiment (below, or later, if people harass me with too much engineering question, I will propose a completely different representation of the same (with respect to the relevance of the reasoning) situation, by using the even less realist Ned Block Chinese People Computer: it can be used for making clear no magic is used in what follows, with the price that its overall implementation is very unrealist, given that the neurons are the chinese willingly playing that role. So, now, we put Alice's brain, which has become a two dimensional optical boolean graph, in between two planes of transparent solid material, glass, and we add a sort of clever fluid cristal together with the graph,in between the glass plates. The fluid cristal is
Re: MGA 2
Hi, if you conserve MEC+MAT... then you conserve MEC, which means consciousness is a computational process (running on real hardware per MAT) but it is a computational process hence the process cannot rely on the entire universe because if it is then MEC should obviously be false unless the entire universe is also a computational process which then would render MAT useless. Don't you think ? Regards, Quentin Le samedi 22 novembre 2008 à 11:54 +, Telmo Menezes a écrit : Bruno, Conserving MEC+MAT, one could argue that no isolation from the environment is possible, even while dreaming. Even if you put Alice in a sensory isolation tank, there is still the possibility that interactions with the entire environment are an essential part of the process that produces consciousness. For example, through quantum entanglement. In the limit, there is the possibility that the entire universe is necessary for her consciousness to arise, and the film experiment becomes impossible because you would have to film the entire sequence of states of the universe during her dream and play them back. Obviously, the same universe where the dream takes place cannot also contain the film (you get infinite recursion). I can't see a way out of this in a single universe. What do you think? Cheers, Telmo Menezes. On Fri, Nov 21, 2008 at 6:33 PM, Bruno Marchal [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: MGA 2 The second step of the MGA, consists in making a change to MGA 1 so that we don't have to introduce that unreasonable amount of cosmic luck, or of apparent randomness. It shows the lucky aspect of the coming information is not relevant. Jason thought on this sequel. Let us consider again Alice, which, as you know as an artificial brain, made of logic gates. Now Alice is sleeping, and doing a dream---like Carroll's original Alice. Today we know that a REM dream is a conscious experience, or better an experience of consciousness, thanks to the work of Hearne Laberge, Dement, etc. Malcolm's theory of dream, where dream are not conscious, has been properly refuted by Hearne and Laberge experiences. (All reference can be found in the bibliography of my long thesis. Ask me if you have problem to find them. I am using a dream experience instead of an experience of awakeness for having less technical problems and being shorter on the relevant points. I let you do the change as an exercise if you want. If you have understood UDA up to the sixth step, such change are easy to do. To convince Brent Meeker, you will have to put the environment, actually its digital functional part in the generalized brain, making the general setting much longer to describe. (If the part of the environment needed for consciousness to proceed is not Turing emulable, then you already negate MEC of course). The dream will facilitate the experience. It is known that in a REM dream we are paralyzed (no outputs), we are cut out from the environment: (no inputs, well not completely because you would not hear the awakening clock, but let us not care about this, or do the exercise above), ... and we are hallucinating: the dream is a natural sort of video game. It shows that the brain is at least a natural virtual reality generator. OK? Alice has already an artificial digital brain. This consists in a boolean tridimensional graph with nodes being NOR gates, and vertex being wires. For the MEC+MAT believer, the dream is produced by the physical activity of the circular digital information processing done by that boolean graph. With MEC, obviously all what matter is that the boolean graph processes the right computation, and we don't have to take into account the precise position of the gates in space. They are not relevant for the computation (if things like that were relevant we would already have said no to the doctor. So we can topologically deform Alice boolean graph brain and project it on a plane so that no gates overlap. Some wires will cross, but (exercise) the crossing of the wires function can itself be implemented with NOR gates. (A solution of that problem, posed by Dewdney, has been given in the Scientific American Journal (and is displayed in Conscience et Mécanisme with the reference). So Alice's brain can be made into a plane boolean graph. Also, a MEC+MAT believer should not insist on the electrical nature of the communication by wires, nor on the electrical nature of the processing of the information by the gates, so that we can use optical information instead. Laser beams play the role of the wires, and some destructive interference can be used for the NOR. The details are not relevant, given that I am not presenting a realist experiment (below, or later, if people harass me with too much engineering question, I will propose a completely different representation of the same (with respect to the relevance
Re: MGA 2
Quentin, Ok, but what if consciousness is a computational process that potentially depends on the entire state of the universe? Let's suppose for example that quantum particles are the fundamental building blocks, i.e. the hardware, and that consciousness is a computational process that emerges from their interactions. We still have MEC+MAT, and due to quantum entanglement, any quantum particle in the universe can potentially interfere in the consciousness computation. How can you store Bruno's film in such a universe? Telmo. On Sat, Nov 22, 2008 at 12:38 PM, Quentin Anciaux [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi, if you conserve MEC+MAT... then you conserve MEC, which means consciousness is a computational process (running on real hardware per MAT) but it is a computational process hence the process cannot rely on the entire universe because if it is then MEC should obviously be false unless the entire universe is also a computational process which then would render MAT useless. Don't you think ? Regards, Quentin Le samedi 22 novembre 2008 à 11:54 +, Telmo Menezes a écrit : Bruno, Conserving MEC+MAT, one could argue that no isolation from the environment is possible, even while dreaming. Even if you put Alice in a sensory isolation tank, there is still the possibility that interactions with the entire environment are an essential part of the process that produces consciousness. For example, through quantum entanglement. In the limit, there is the possibility that the entire universe is necessary for her consciousness to arise, and the film experiment becomes impossible because you would have to film the entire sequence of states of the universe during her dream and play them back. Obviously, the same universe where the dream takes place cannot also contain the film (you get infinite recursion). I can't see a way out of this in a single universe. What do you think? Cheers, Telmo Menezes. On Fri, Nov 21, 2008 at 6:33 PM, Bruno Marchal [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: MGA 2 The second step of the MGA, consists in making a change to MGA 1 so that we don't have to introduce that unreasonable amount of cosmic luck, or of apparent randomness. It shows the lucky aspect of the coming information is not relevant. Jason thought on this sequel. Let us consider again Alice, which, as you know as an artificial brain, made of logic gates. Now Alice is sleeping, and doing a dream---like Carroll's original Alice. Today we know that a REM dream is a conscious experience, or better an experience of consciousness, thanks to the work of Hearne Laberge, Dement, etc. Malcolm's theory of dream, where dream are not conscious, has been properly refuted by Hearne and Laberge experiences. (All reference can be found in the bibliography of my long thesis. Ask me if you have problem to find them. I am using a dream experience instead of an experience of awakeness for having less technical problems and being shorter on the relevant points. I let you do the change as an exercise if you want. If you have understood UDA up to the sixth step, such change are easy to do. To convince Brent Meeker, you will have to put the environment, actually its digital functional part in the generalized brain, making the general setting much longer to describe. (If the part of the environment needed for consciousness to proceed is not Turing emulable, then you already negate MEC of course). The dream will facilitate the experience. It is known that in a REM dream we are paralyzed (no outputs), we are cut out from the environment: (no inputs, well not completely because you would not hear the awakening clock, but let us not care about this, or do the exercise above), ... and we are hallucinating: the dream is a natural sort of video game. It shows that the brain is at least a natural virtual reality generator. OK? Alice has already an artificial digital brain. This consists in a boolean tridimensional graph with nodes being NOR gates, and vertex being wires. For the MEC+MAT believer, the dream is produced by the physical activity of the circular digital information processing done by that boolean graph. With MEC, obviously all what matter is that the boolean graph processes the right computation, and we don't have to take into account the precise position of the gates in space. They are not relevant for the computation (if things like that were relevant we would already have said no to the doctor. So we can topologically deform Alice boolean graph brain and project it on a plane so that no gates overlap. Some wires will cross, but (exercise) the crossing of the wires function can itself be implemented with NOR gates. (A solution of that problem, posed by Dewdney, has been given in the Scientific American Journal (and is displayed in Conscience et Mécanisme with the reference). So Alice's brain can be made into a
Re: MGA 2
Well what is the entire state of the universe ? if it is an infinite string then it cannot be computational, it is not simulable. Also if all my consciousness depends on all the universe, then it depends also on yours (and everything else) that I know you or not... I believe this a lot improbable. If MEC is true I'm a finite string, 'I' is a finite set of information simply because it is a computation... If it's not finite simply it's not a computation and MEC is false. But what you say is for me rejecting MEC and keeping MAT, not both. Regards, Quentin Le samedi 22 novembre 2008 à 15:26 +, Telmo Menezes a écrit : Quentin, Ok, but what if consciousness is a computational process that potentially depends on the entire state of the universe? Let's suppose for example that quantum particles are the fundamental building blocks, i.e. the hardware, and that consciousness is a computational process that emerges from their interactions. We still have MEC+MAT, and due to quantum entanglement, any quantum particle in the universe can potentially interfere in the consciousness computation. How can you store Bruno's film in such a universe? Telmo. On Sat, Nov 22, 2008 at 12:38 PM, Quentin Anciaux [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi, if you conserve MEC+MAT... then you conserve MEC, which means consciousness is a computational process (running on real hardware per MAT) but it is a computational process hence the process cannot rely on the entire universe because if it is then MEC should obviously be false unless the entire universe is also a computational process which then would render MAT useless. Don't you think ? Regards, Quentin Le samedi 22 novembre 2008 à 11:54 +, Telmo Menezes a écrit : Bruno, Conserving MEC+MAT, one could argue that no isolation from the environment is possible, even while dreaming. Even if you put Alice in a sensory isolation tank, there is still the possibility that interactions with the entire environment are an essential part of the process that produces consciousness. For example, through quantum entanglement. In the limit, there is the possibility that the entire universe is necessary for her consciousness to arise, and the film experiment becomes impossible because you would have to film the entire sequence of states of the universe during her dream and play them back. Obviously, the same universe where the dream takes place cannot also contain the film (you get infinite recursion). I can't see a way out of this in a single universe. What do you think? Cheers, Telmo Menezes. On Fri, Nov 21, 2008 at 6:33 PM, Bruno Marchal [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: MGA 2 The second step of the MGA, consists in making a change to MGA 1 so that we don't have to introduce that unreasonable amount of cosmic luck, or of apparent randomness. It shows the lucky aspect of the coming information is not relevant. Jason thought on this sequel. Let us consider again Alice, which, as you know as an artificial brain, made of logic gates. Now Alice is sleeping, and doing a dream---like Carroll's original Alice. Today we know that a REM dream is a conscious experience, or better an experience of consciousness, thanks to the work of Hearne Laberge, Dement, etc. Malcolm's theory of dream, where dream are not conscious, has been properly refuted by Hearne and Laberge experiences. (All reference can be found in the bibliography of my long thesis. Ask me if you have problem to find them. I am using a dream experience instead of an experience of awakeness for having less technical problems and being shorter on the relevant points. I let you do the change as an exercise if you want. If you have understood UDA up to the sixth step, such change are easy to do. To convince Brent Meeker, you will have to put the environment, actually its digital functional part in the generalized brain, making the general setting much longer to describe. (If the part of the environment needed for consciousness to proceed is not Turing emulable, then you already negate MEC of course). The dream will facilitate the experience. It is known that in a REM dream we are paralyzed (no outputs), we are cut out from the environment: (no inputs, well not completely because you would not hear the awakening clock, but let us not care about this, or do the exercise above), ... and we are hallucinating: the dream is a natural sort of video game. It shows that the brain is at least a natural virtual reality generator. OK? Alice has already an artificial digital brain. This consists in a boolean tridimensional graph with nodes being NOR gates, and vertex being wires. For the MEC+MAT believer, the dream is produced by the physical activity of the circular digital information processing done by that boolean graph. With MEC, obviously
Re: MGA 2
On Nov 21, 2008, at 10:33 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: So let us suppose that poor Alice got, again, a not very good optical plane graph, so that some (1 to many to all, again) NOR gates break down, in that precise computation corresponding to her dream experience. And let us project, in real time, with the correct scaling, the movie we have made, on the graph, playing its role of a repeatable lucky rays generator. Is the movie causally interacting with the gates? In other words, is the light from the movie projector stimulating gates when the lasers fail to? In the ALL gates broken case, we have really, *only a movie* of Alice's brain activity. Does consciousness arise from the projection of that movie? Once again, is the movie supposed to be triggering any working machinery in the graph? Or could you just as easily project it somewhere else that point? -- Kory --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: MGA 2
Well what is the entire state of the universe ? if it is an infinite string then it cannot be computational, it is not simulable. I tend to think our universe is finite. The multiverse, that's another story... But even in an infinite universe, we could have a finite consciousness computation that could potentially depend on any part of the state of the universe, without being possible to know which part a priori. Someone could always argue that playing the film failed to recreate consciousness because you left a certain part of the universe out. I don't actually believe any of this to be the case, I'm just playing devil's advocate... Also if all my consciousness depends on all the universe, then it depends also on yours (and everything else) that I know you or not... I believe this a lot improbable. I wouldn't know how to measure the probability of such a thing being true, but I think at least you agree that it is possible, and that's enough to cause us problems. T. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: MGA 2
On Nov 22, 2008, at 7:26 AM, Telmo Menezes wrote: Ok, but what if consciousness is a computational process that potentially depends on the entire state of the universe? Let's suppose for example that quantum particles are the fundamental building blocks, i.e. the hardware, and that consciousness is a computational process that emerges from their interactions. We still have MEC+MAT, and due to quantum entanglement, any quantum particle in the universe can potentially interfere in the consciousness computation. How can you store Bruno's film in such a universe? This is why I prefer to cast these thought experiments in terms of finite cellular automata. All of the issues you mention go away. (One can argue that finite cellular automata can't contain conscious beings, but that's just a rejection of MEC, which we're supposed to be keeping.) I'm not entirely sure I understand the details of Bruno's Movie-Graph (yet), so I don't know if it's equivalent to the following thought experiment: Let's say that we run a computer program that allocates a very large two-dimensional array, fills it with a special Initial State (which is hard-coded into the program), and then executes the rules of Conway's Life on the array for a certain number of iterations. Let's say that the resulting universe contains creatures that any garden-variety mechanist would agree are fully conscious. Let's say that we run the universe for at least enough iterations to allow the creatures to move around, say a few things, experience a few things, etc. Finally, let's say that we store the results of all of our calculations in a (much larger) area of memory, so that we can look up what each bit did at each tick of the clock. Now let's say that we play back the stored results of our calculations, like a movie. At each tick of the clock t, we just copy the bits from time t of our our stored memory into our two-dimensional array. There are no Conway's Life calculations going on here. We're just copying bits, one time-slice at a time, from our stored memory into our original grid. It is difficult for a mechanist to argue that any consciousness is happening here. It's functionally equivalent to just printing out each time-slice onto a (huge) piece of paper, and flipping through those pages like a picture book and watching the animated playback. It's hard for a mechanist to argue that this style of flipping pages in a picture book can create consciousness. Now let's imagine that we compute the Conway's Life universe again - we load the Initial State into the grid, and then iteratively apply the Conway's Life rule to the grid. However, for some percentage of the cells in the grid, instead of looking at the neighboring cells and updating according to the Conway's Life rule, we instead just pull the data from the lookup table that we created in the previous run. If we apply the Conway's Life rule to all the cells, it seems like the creatures in the grid ought to be conscious. If we don't apply the Life rule to any of the cells, but just pull the data from our previously-created lookup table, it seems like the creatures in the grid are not conscious. But if we apply the Life rule to half of the cells and pull the other half from the lookup table, there will (probably) be some creature in the grid who has half of the cells in its brain being computed by the Life rule, and half being pulled from the lookup table. What's the status of this creature's consciousness? -- Kory --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: MGA 2
Telmo Menezes wrote: Quentin, Ok, but what if consciousness is a computational process that potentially depends on the entire state of the universe? Let's suppose for example that quantum particles are the fundamental building blocks, i.e. the hardware, and that consciousness is a computational process that emerges from their interactions. We still have MEC+MAT, and due to quantum entanglement, any quantum particle in the universe can potentially interfere in the consciousness computation. How can you store Bruno's film in such a universe? Telmo. But brain functions are essentially classical (see Tegmark's paper). Thought would be impossible if quantum entanglement was more that a perturbation. From a classical viewpoint, your brain can only be causally affected by a finite portion of the universe. Brent --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: MGA 2
Kory Heath wrote: On Nov 22, 2008, at 7:26 AM, Telmo Menezes wrote: Ok, but what if consciousness is a computational process that potentially depends on the entire state of the universe? Let's suppose for example that quantum particles are the fundamental building blocks, i.e. the hardware, and that consciousness is a computational process that emerges from their interactions. We still have MEC+MAT, and due to quantum entanglement, any quantum particle in the universe can potentially interfere in the consciousness computation. How can you store Bruno's film in such a universe? This is why I prefer to cast these thought experiments in terms of finite cellular automata. All of the issues you mention go away. (One can argue that finite cellular automata can't contain conscious beings, but that's just a rejection of MEC, which we're supposed to be keeping.) I'm not entirely sure I understand the details of Bruno's Movie-Graph (yet), so I don't know if it's equivalent to the following thought experiment: Let's say that we run a computer program that allocates a very large two-dimensional array, fills it with a special Initial State (which is hard-coded into the program), and then executes the rules of Conway's Life on the array for a certain number of iterations. Let's say that the resulting universe contains creatures that any garden-variety mechanist would agree are fully conscious. Let's say that we run the universe for at least enough iterations to allow the creatures to move around, say a few things, experience a few things, etc. Finally, let's say that we store the results of all of our calculations in a (much larger) area of memory, so that we can look up what each bit did at each tick of the clock. Now let's say that we play back the stored results of our calculations, like a movie. At each tick of the clock t, we just copy the bits from time t of our our stored memory into our two-dimensional array. There are no Conway's Life calculations going on here. We're just copying bits, one time-slice at a time, from our stored memory into our original grid. It is difficult for a mechanist to argue that any consciousness is happening here. It's functionally equivalent to just printing out each time-slice onto a (huge) piece of paper, and flipping through those pages like a picture book and watching the animated playback. It's hard for a mechanist to argue that this style of flipping pages in a picture book can create consciousness. Now let's imagine that we compute the Conway's Life universe again - we load the Initial State into the grid, and then iteratively apply the Conway's Life rule to the grid. However, for some percentage of the cells in the grid, instead of looking at the neighboring cells and updating according to the Conway's Life rule, we instead just pull the data from the lookup table that we created in the previous run. If we apply the Conway's Life rule to all the cells, it seems like the creatures in the grid ought to be conscious. If we don't apply the Life rule to any of the cells, but just pull the data from our previously-created lookup table, it seems like the creatures in the grid are not conscious. But if we apply the Life rule to half of the cells and pull the other half from the lookup table, there will (probably) be some creature in the grid who has half of the cells in its brain being computed by the Life rule, and half being pulled from the lookup table. What's the status of this creature's consciousness? I don't think it's a relevant distinction. Even when the game-of-life is running on the computer the adjacent cells are not physically causing the changes from on to off and vice versa - that function is via the program implemented in the computer memory and cpu. So why should it make a difference whether those state changes are decided by gates in the cpu or a huge look-up table? Brent --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: MGA 2
Kory Heath wrote: On Nov 22, 2008, at 7:26 AM, Telmo Menezes wrote: Ok, but what if consciousness is a computational process that potentially depends on the entire state of the universe? Let's suppose for example that quantum particles are the fundamental building blocks, i.e. the hardware, and that consciousness is a computational process that emerges from their interactions. We still have MEC+MAT, and due to quantum entanglement, any quantum particle in the universe can potentially interfere in the consciousness computation. How can you store Bruno's film in such a universe? This is why I prefer to cast these thought experiments in terms of finite cellular automata. All of the issues you mention go away. (One can argue that finite cellular automata can't contain conscious beings, but that's just a rejection of MEC, which we're supposed to be keeping.) I'm not entirely sure I understand the details of Bruno's Movie-Graph (yet), so I don't know if it's equivalent to the following thought experiment: Let's say that we run a computer program that allocates a very large two-dimensional array, fills it with a special Initial State (which is hard-coded into the program), and then executes the rules of Conway's Life on the array for a certain number of iterations. Let's say that the resulting universe contains creatures that any garden-variety mechanist would agree are fully conscious. But how would they agree on this? If we knew the answer to that we wouldn't need to be considering these (nomologically) impossible thought experiments. I don't think we would judge purely by their behavior. That might suffice if we could observe for a very long time and if we could manipulate the environment, but more practically I think we would look at how their sensory organs and memory interacted to influence behavior. Brent --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: MGA 2
2008/11/23 Kory Heath [EMAIL PROTECTED]: If we apply the Conway's Life rule to all the cells, it seems like the creatures in the grid ought to be conscious. If we don't apply the Life rule to any of the cells, but just pull the data from our previously-created lookup table, it seems like the creatures in the grid are not conscious. But if we apply the Life rule to half of the cells and pull the other half from the lookup table, there will (probably) be some creature in the grid who has half of the cells in its brain being computed by the Life rule, and half being pulled from the lookup table. What's the status of this creature's consciousness? Which leads again to the problem of partial zombies. What is your objection to saying that the looked up computation is also conscious? How would that be inconsistent with observation, or lead to logical contradiction? -- Stathis Papaioannou --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: MGA 2
On Sat, Nov 22, 2008 at 8:52 PM, Stathis Papaioannou [EMAIL PROTECTED]wrote: 2008/11/23 Kory Heath [EMAIL PROTECTED]: If we apply the Conway's Life rule to all the cells, it seems like the creatures in the grid ought to be conscious. If we don't apply the Life rule to any of the cells, but just pull the data from our previously-created lookup table, it seems like the creatures in the grid are not conscious. But if we apply the Life rule to half of the cells and pull the other half from the lookup table, there will (probably) be some creature in the grid who has half of the cells in its brain being computed by the Life rule, and half being pulled from the lookup table. What's the status of this creature's consciousness? Which leads again to the problem of partial zombies. What is your objection to saying that the looked up computation is also conscious? How would that be inconsistent with observation, or lead to logical contradiction? I would side with Kory that a looked up recording of conscious activity is not conscious. My argument being that static information has no implicit meaning because there are an infinite number of ways a bit string can be interpreted. However in a running program the values of the bits do have implicit meaning according to the rules of the state machine. What makes this weird is that in one respect our universe might be considered a 4-d recording, containing a record of computations performed by neurons and brains across one of its dimensions. Perhaps this is further evidence in support of Bruno's theory: mind cannot exist in a physical universe because it is just a recording of a computation, and only the actual computation itself can create consciousness. Jason --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: MGA 2
Jason Resch wrote: On Sat, Nov 22, 2008 at 8:52 PM, Stathis Papaioannou [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: 2008/11/23 Kory Heath [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]: If we apply the Conway's Life rule to all the cells, it seems like the creatures in the grid ought to be conscious. If we don't apply the Life rule to any of the cells, but just pull the data from our previously-created lookup table, it seems like the creatures in the grid are not conscious. But if we apply the Life rule to half of the cells and pull the other half from the lookup table, there will (probably) be some creature in the grid who has half of the cells in its brain being computed by the Life rule, and half being pulled from the lookup table. What's the status of this creature's consciousness? Which leads again to the problem of partial zombies. What is your objection to saying that the looked up computation is also conscious? How would that be inconsistent with observation, or lead to logical contradiction? I would side with Kory that a looked up recording of conscious activity is not conscious. My argument being that static information has no implicit meaning because there are an infinite number of ways a bit string can be interpreted. However in a running program the values of the bits do have implicit meaning according to the rules of the state machine. But this static information is produced by a dynamic computation - so it can be regarded as deriving its meaning from that computation. I don't see why that implicit meaning shouldn't count. Brent What makes this weird is that in one respect our universe might be considered a 4-d recording, containing a record of computations performed by neurons and brains across one of its dimensions. Perhaps this is further evidence in support of Bruno's theory: mind cannot exist in a physical universe because it is just a recording of a computation, and only the actual computation itself can create consciousness. Jason --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: MGA 2
Bruno Marchal wrote: MGA 2 The second step of the MGA, consists in making a change to MGA 1 so that we don't have to introduce that unreasonable amount of cosmic luck, or of apparent randomness. It shows the lucky aspect of the coming information is not relevant. Jason thought on this sequel. Let us consider again Alice, which, as you know as an artificial brain, made of logic gates. Now Alice is sleeping, and doing a dream---like Carroll's original Alice. Today we know that a REM dream is a conscious experience, or better an experience of consciousness, thanks to the work of Hearne Laberge, Dement, etc. Malcolm's theory of dream, where dream are not conscious, has been properly refuted by Hearne and Laberge experiences. (All reference can be found in the bibliography of my long thesis. Ask me if you have problem to find them. I am using a dream experience instead of an experience of awakeness for having less technical problems and being shorter on the relevant points. I let you do the change as an exercise if you want. If you have understood UDA up to the sixth step, such change are easy to do. To convince Brent Meeker, you will have to put the environment, actually its digital functional part in the generalized brain, making the general setting much longer to describe. (If the part of the environment needed for consciousness to proceed is not Turing emulable, then you already negate MEC of course). The dream will facilitate the experience. It is known that in a REM dream we are paralyzed (no outputs), we are cut out from the environment: (no inputs, well not completely because you would not hear the awakening clock, but let us not care about this, or do the exercise above), ... and we are hallucinating: the dream is a natural sort of video game. It shows that the brain is at least a natural virtual reality generator. OK? Alice has already an artificial digital brain. This consists in a boolean tridimensional graph with nodes being NOR gates, and vertex being wires. For the MEC+MAT believer, the dream is produced by the physical activity of the circular digital information processing done by that boolean graph. With MEC, obviously all what matter is that the boolean graph processes the right computation, and we don't have to take into account the precise position of the gates in space. They are not relevant for the computation (if things like that were relevant we would already have said no to the doctor. So we can topologically deform Alice boolean graph brain and project it on a plane so that no gates overlap. Some wires will cross, but (exercise) the crossing of the wires function can itself be implemented with NOR gates. (A solution of that problem, posed by Dewdney, has been given in the Scientific American Journal (and is displayed in Conscience et Mécanisme with the reference). So Alice's brain can be made into a plane boolean graph. Also, a MEC+MAT believer should not insist on the electrical nature of the communication by wires, nor on the electrical nature of the processing of the information by the gates, so that we can use optical information instead. Laser beams play the role of the wires, and some destructive interference can be used for the NOR. The details are not relevant, given that I am not presenting a realist experiment (below, or later, if people harass me with too much engineering question, I will propose a completely different representation of the same (with respect to the relevance of the reasoning) situation, by using the even less realist Ned Block Chinese People Computer: it can be used for making clear no magic is used in what follows, with the price that its overall implementation is very unrealist, given that the neurons are the chinese willingly playing that role. So, now, we put Alice's brain, which has become a two dimensional optical boolean graph, in between two planes of transparent solid material, glass, and we add a sort of clever fluid cristal together with the graph,in between the glass plates. The fluid cristal is supposed to have the following peculiar property (which certainly is hard to implement concretely but which is possible in principle). Each time a beam of light trigs a line between two nodes, it trigs a laser beam in the good direction between the two optical gates, with the correct frequency-color (to keep right the functioning of the NOR). This works well, and we can let that brain work from time t1 to t2, where Alice dreams specifically, for fixing the matter, that she is in front of a mushroom, talking with a caterpillar who sits on the Muschroom (all right?). We have beforehand save the instantaneous state corresponding to the begining of that dream, so as to be able to repeat that precise graph activity. Each
