On 25 Nov 2011, at 15:14, benjayk wrote:
Bruno Marchal wrote:
So uploading is not necessarily superfluous. It is vein if the
abstract goal is "immortality", but full of sense if the goal
consists
in seeing the next soccer cup and your brain is too much ill to do it
'naturally'.
But as soon as we upload ourselves, we can't make sure we uniquely
interact
with our usual physical reality,
Indeed. But that is an explainable facts in the comp theory. We cannot
know our substitution level, we cannot know if comp is true. It is a
bit banal: we cannot know if we will survive any next experiment or
experience, even of sleeping or drinking a cup of tea.
since an uploaded digital mind could also
be part of a lot of dreamy realities
It is a part of a lot of "dreamy realities", without any uploading. By
definition of the body and of the digital level of substitution, if we
upload ourself in a computer, we conserve the same relative proportion
of the "dreamy realities".
(/simulations/virtual words) - except
if we assume materialism, which postulates there is an objective
physical
wold (in which case we have no computational reason to suspect
substitutions
will work, we would have to rely on blind faith).
Not at all. If there is an objective primary physical world, we must
expect any digital substitution to be equivalent with (absolute)
death. In the worst case, we become zombie. No worry: there is no
evidence at all for an objective primary physical world.
But with comp, there is an objective, first person plural, physical
reality. Indeed, comp makes it very stable and solid, because it
relies on objective non physical relations between the numbers.
Our brain avoids that by being a structure with a quite unique
instantiation,
Current physics makes this very doubtful. Assuming QM, there is only
quantum clouds of brains. Unless you presuppose the old copenhagen QM,
which does not make sense to me.
and a quite clear subjective dividing barrier to virtual
realities (I am not a/ in a computer).
How do you know that?
That's why I don't buy COMP: As soon as we substitute ourselves, we
will
inevitably change our subjective relative environment, making the
substitution fail.
Only if we are wrong on the choice of the substitution level (by
definition).
If we are a computer, we can subjectively interface much
more strongly with all the computers that our computational
instantiation is
(could be) a part of and interfere with all the simulations that are
hard to
dinstinguish from what goes on "your" computer.
Yes. Even up to the point that " "your" computer" is not well defined.
You (1-you) "have" an infinity of computers/brain.
It's harder to dinstinguish
yourself from other simulated selfes than from other biological
selves,
because of the natural biological barriers that we have, that
computers
lack.
Ah?
And we can't assume we are able to find the right world we would like
to be in, without subjectively developing a brain (which will make the
substitution seem to never have happened).
If it is done at the right level, you will know. Just by seeing the
doctor's bill, or by feeling dizzy when going through some strong
magnetic field, like in airport (even with an artificial heart that
can can happen).
We can only say YES if we assume there is no self-referential loop
between
my instantiation and my environment (my instantiation influences
what world
I am in, the world I am in influences my instantiation, etc...).
Why? Such loops obviously exist (statistically), and the relative
proportion statistics remains unchanged, when doing the substitution
at the right level. If such loop plays a role in consciousness, you
have to enlarge the digital "generalized" brain. Or comp is wrong,
'course.
But we
really have to assume such a loop exists if we are already part of the
matrix (since everything in the matrix is connected).
Such connection are just made of the sharing of the computations.
It matters how "our" computations are instantiated because of
subjective
self-reference.
Sure. That is why we have to choose the right level. And this needs
always some act of faith. To be sure, evidences are that the level is
rather high (chemistry of the biological brain).
OK, we could say YES based on the faith that subjective self-
reference will
develop a world for the digital brain that is similar to the old world
(though that seems very unlikely to me), but this is not YES qua
computatio.
That is exactly the YES qua computatio. You let the artificial machine
handling the 3-person self-reference (at the hopefully right level),
and you bet you are still confronted with the local "persistant true
illusion".
Of course in science we don't search for any certainty. This should
not add doubt on what we are already certain, but keep for ourself,
because it is not publicly sharable. The only exception to this is
consciousness. If the theory predicts that I am right now and here NOT
conscious, then I will not defend it.
Bruno
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
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