Re: Free will/consciousness/ineffability
Hal Finney wrote: Bruno:Your desktop computer cannot be conscious, nor can my brain. If you succeed putting my mind (software) in your desktop computer, your desktop computer will still not be conscious, but it will make possible for me to talk with you (as my brain does now). Only a person can be said conscious. And person, like nation, or game are immaterial (with comp), and not absolutely "singularisable" (only relatively). >>> >>> Brent:This confuses me, Bruno. You always postulate 'comp', i.e. that >>> the brain can be emulated. I had always assumed that this entailed >>> the emulation being conscious. > >Hal: I would say to this that consciousness is a property of a program, not >of a computer. When a computer runs a program, the computer does not >thereby become conscious. > >Hal: By analogy, other properties of programs include "being well written" >or "having N^2 running time". When a computer runs such a program we >wouldn't say that the computer is well written, or the computer has >N^2 running time. In the same way we wouldn't say that the computer is >conscious when it runs a conscious program. Charles Goodwin makes the following comment: >So a person isn't conscious either, presumably, since a person is not a >program (at least, not unless everything is). I agree with Hal Finney, or at least with the spirit of Hal Finney's comment. Now, strictly speaking, Charles is right when saying that a person is not a program (no more that a person is a computer or a brain or a liver or a material body). Actually I still don't know what is a person (and that's why I still cannot decide how many person exist O (like James Higgo said), 1 (as I tend to believe) or many, as it looks *apparently*. Much more easy than defining what is a person is to distinguish type of discourse (like 1 and 3 discourse), and then to reason about possible such discourses. The distinction between the brain and the *owner* of the brain is well explained by Hofstadter and Dennet in Mind's I, when they show the shortcomings of Searle's Chinese Room argument. I would say that a person can be seen as a program (or as a sequence of programs) once those terms are interpreted in a sufficiently immaterial or abstract way. I guess Finney was not meaning by program a particular electrical instantiation of a program. Bruno
RE: Free will/consciousness/ineffability
> -Original Message- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] > Sent: Tuesday, 9 October 2001 7:19 a.m. > > I would say to this that consciousness is a property of a program, not > of a computer. When a computer runs a program, the computer does not > thereby become conscious. So a person isn't conscious either, presumably, since a person is not a program (at least, not unless everything is). Charles
Re: Free will/consciousness/ineffability
>>> Bruno:Your desktop computer cannot be conscious, nor can my brain. >>> If you succeed putting my mind (software) in your desktop >>> computer, your desktop computer will still not be conscious, but >>> it will make possible for me to talk with you (as my brain does >>> now). Only a person can be said conscious. And person, like >>> nation, or game are immaterial (with comp), and not absolutely >>> "singularisable" (only relatively). >> >> Brent:This confuses me, Bruno. You always postulate 'comp', i.e. that >> the brain can be emulated. I had always assumed that this entailed >> the emulation being conscious. I would say to this that consciousness is a property of a program, not of a computer. When a computer runs a program, the computer does not thereby become conscious. By analogy, other properties of programs include "being well written" or "having N^2 running time". When a computer runs such a program we wouldn't say that the computer is well written, or the computer has N^2 running time. In the same way we wouldn't say that the computer is conscious when it runs a conscious program. Hal
Re: Free will/consciousness/ineffability
Hello Marchal On 08-Oct-01, Marchal wrote: > Brent Meeker wrote: > > >> On 05-Oct-01, Marchal wrote: >> ...> >>> Neil Lion:Seeing that there is no rigerous way to define what >>> actually constitues a physical computer, and what does not, does it >>> make any sense to say "my desktop computer" has become conscious? >>> >>> >>> Bruno:Your desktop computer cannot be conscious, nor can my brain. >>> If you succeed putting my mind (software) in your desktop >>> computer, your desktop computer will still not be conscious, but >>> it will make possible for me to talk with you (as my brain does >>> now). Only a person can be said conscious. And person, like >>> nation, or game are immaterial (with comp), and not absolutely >>> "singularisable" (only relatively). >> >> Brent:This confuses me, Bruno. You always postulate 'comp', i.e. that >> the brain can be emulated. I had always assumed that this entailed >> the emulation being conscious. > > > Well, not really the emulation, but some person can have > a consciousness such that that consciousness is manifested > through that emulation relatively to you, or relatively > to the computations you share with that consciousness. > > >> Now I see that you regard consciousness as not only as immaterial (as >> a computer program or mathematics is immaterial) but also independent >> of material - a soul - and at the same time you regard the material >> as independent of consciousness so that a material structure, such as >> a brain, can have related consciousness or not. This seems to be >> dualism - which as you must know has many problems related to the >> interaction of spirit and material. > > > I do not regard the material as independent of consciousness. > Remember that the material is a "consciousness construction" > in the company of those computations going through that consciousness. > It is true that, locally, a piece of matter can be considered as > independent of my consciousness, but it is just a way of speaking. > > I agree with you that dualism is difficult to defend, but comp > entails immaterialist monism. Now, we can bet, for empirical > reasons, that we are sharing long and deep computations, which > are also interfering (for pure computational reasons but we > can expect that quantum interferences mirror the comp interferences), > so that some very stable object appears in our experiences, and can > be considered as mind independent for all practical purposes. > Nevertheless any proposition like "that object exists" is a > machine anticipation true only relatively to a most probable > computation. OK, as I understand your ontology it is something like: mathematics->computation->consciousness->material But this seems to still leave the problems of dualism because it allows that a consciousness (e.g. mine) can be generated without any associated material (e.g. a brain) and also that consciousnesses can generate another brain (e.g. duplicate of mine) with no associated consciousness. I take it that this is the 'indeterminism' you illustrate by the Washington/Moscom duplication experiment. I had never been able to understand what indeterminism you referred to until now. Now I see that you suppose that the original consciousness will go into one of the duplicates and the other will be void of consciousness. Is this correct? Brent Meeker Sometimes it is necessary to make things clearer than the truth. --- Dean Acheson
Re: Free will/consciousness/ineffability
Brent Meeker wrote: >On 05-Oct-01, Marchal wrote: >...> >>> Neil Lion:Seeing that there is no rigerous way to define what actually >>> constitues a physical computer, and what does not, does it make any >>> sense to say "my desktop computer" has become conscious? >> >> >> Bruno:Your desktop computer cannot be conscious, nor can my brain. >> If you succeed putting my mind (software) in your desktop >> computer, your desktop computer will still not be conscious, but >> it will make possible for me to talk with you (as my brain does >> now). Only a person can be said conscious. And person, like >> nation, or game are immaterial (with comp), and not absolutely >> "singularisable" (only relatively). > >Brent:This confuses me, Bruno. You always postulate 'comp', i.e. that the >brain can be emulated. I had always assumed that this entailed the >emulation being conscious. Well, not really the emulation, but some person can have a consciousness such that that consciousness is manifested through that emulation relatively to you, or relatively to the computations you share with that consciousness. >Now I see that you regard consciousness as >not only as immaterial (as a computer program or mathematics is >immaterial) but also independent of material - a soul - and at the same >time you regard the material as independent of consciousness so that a >material structure, such as a brain, can have related consciousness or >not. This seems to be dualism - which as you must know has many >problems related to the interaction of spirit and material. I do not regard the material as independent of consciousness. Remember that the material is a "consciousness construction" in the company of those computations going through that consciousness. It is true that, locally, a piece of matter can be considered as independent of my consciousness, but it is just a way of speaking. I agree with you that dualism is difficult to defend, but comp entails immaterialist monism. Now, we can bet, for empirical reasons, that we are sharing long and deep computations, which are also interfering (for pure computational reasons but we can expect that quantum interferences mirror the comp interferences), so that some very stable object appears in our experiences, and can be considered as mind independent for all practical purposes. Nevertheless any proposition like "that object exists" is a machine anticipation true only relatively to a most probable computation. Bruno
Re: Free will/consciousness/ineffability
On 05-Oct-01, Marchal wrote: ...> >> Seeing that there is no rigerous way to define what actually >> constitues a physical computer, and what does not, does it make any >> sense to say "my desktop computer" has become conscious? > > > Your desktop computer cannot be conscious, nor can my brain. > If you succeed putting my mind (software) in your desktop > computer, your desktop computer will still not be conscious, but > it will make possible for me to talk with you (as my brain does > now). Only a person can be said conscious. And person, like > nation, or game are immaterial (with comp), and not absolutely > "singularisable" (only relatively). This confuses me, Bruno. You always postulate 'comp', i.e. that the brain can be emulated. I had always assumed that this entailed the emulation being conscious. Now I see that you regard consciousness as not only as immaterial (as a computer program or mathematics is immaterial) but also independent of material - a soul - and at the same time you regard the material as independent of consciousness so that a material structure, such as a brain, can have related consciousness or not. This seems to be dualism - which as you must know has many problems related to the interaction of spirit and material. Brent Meeker As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain, and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality. -- Albert Einstein
Re: Free will/consciousness/ineffability
Neil Lion wrote: >This is true, but the current state of a computer can always be represented >within a finite string. Perhaps the computer cannot ever realize this, as >the description will be a part of the computer (ad-infinitum), but as long >as I see myself as seperate from the process of the computation, I can >objectively describe it in a 'total' manner - I can always describe all the >constituent parts that satisfy the circumstance of my definition of a >computer. You can only bet on a level of description. >It is by definition, finitely realizable, which isn't really true >for things that really exist in the objective world. In reality, I am not >completely seperate from the computer as an actual physical object, but it's >like an emulation of a computer running on a 'real' computer; code running >on the emulated computer, makes no more sense to the actual physical >computer its based on than any other arbitrary program would. A physical >computer makes no more sense to the 'cosmos' than does any other arbitrary >arrangement of objects. But the same can be said about the brain or the body. I don't understand the nature of the difference you are supposing. >So is a physical computer an immaterial machine, or is it just an example of >an immaterial machine, that does actually exist in somewhere in Plationia, >or is it neither? It is neither. The physical aspect of the computer comes from the covering of all immaterial description of that computer made at all possible correct level of description existing in Platonia. (look at the UDA; links at http://www.escribe.com/science/theory/m3044.html >Seeing that there is no rigerous way to define what >actually constitues a physical computer, and what does not, does it make any >sense to say "my desktop computer" has become conscious? Your desktop computer cannot be conscious, nor can my brain. If you succeed putting my mind (software) in your desktop computer, your desktop computer will still not be conscious, but it will make possible for me to talk with you (as my brain does now). Only a person can be said conscious. And person, like nation, or game are immaterial (with comp), and not absolutely "singularisable" (only relatively). >As the entire >universe is eventually connected, I could prob. show and almost infinite >number of such machines, just by choosing arbitary points in space to >represent the various units of my computer. Which "entire universe" (quite undefined term for me). Which various units of your computer ? >OK, so memory may be a first person experience to us, but would it be a >first person experience to an actual physical computer? All the parts of a >physical computer are mutually exclusive and rely on a specific physical >organisation, existing in the third-person in relation to each other. >Therefore, there is no real sense in which the physical computer is in the >first-person with regards to anything. All right, we agree on that. But this reasoning works for brains, bodies, universes, etc. >It [the computer] is always going to perceive its >memory in a third-person sense. Why? >It perhaps is justified to say that that >although this computer specifically is not conscious/1st-person, it is an >example of an equivalent that does exist somewhere in the platonic world or >in the multiverse, and so in a certain sense, is conscious, but this seems a >bit dubious. I don't see why. Would you agree to define axiomatise partially consciousness as something we anticipate (partially instinctively) altough we cannot communicate to others that we "feel" ourselves as conscious. Neil Lion said in another post: > [...] I have tried to draw a >distiniction between a computer (a concept) and a brain (a 'thing'). If >you like, a physical computer is meaningless to the fundamental process >(sorry I lack a better term), whereas a brain is meaningful. I do believe >that the brain has a large part to play in the question of consciousness. This would entail that a brain is not emulable by a computer. And this would entail the existence of a part of brain non emulable by a computer. This would entail something like the use of an actual infinite somewhere in the brain or the use or some substancial soul. What do you mean a brain is meaningful. An hard disk is also meaningful. Are you a naturalist? Bruno
Re: Free will/consciousness/ineffability
Neil Lion wrote: >OK, so memory may be a first person experience to us, but would it be a >first person experience to an actual physical computer? All the parts of a >physical computer are mutually exclusive and rely on a specific physical >organisation, existing in the third-person in relation to each other. But you are postulating some physical or substancial absolute third-person relations. I take for granted *only* relational number theoretical third-person relations. All the rest from quark to hydrogen and dinosaure are invariant pattern observable from some sharable point of view. >Therefore, there is no real sense in which the physical computer is in the >first-person with regards to anything. Sure. But there is no physical computer outside your mind. There is only type of immaterial relation between possible immaterial computer. The physicality is an indexical. A possible world viewed from inside. >It is always going to perceive its >memory in a third-person sense. It perhaps is justified to say that that >although this computer specifically is not conscious/1st-person, it is an >example of an equivalent that does exist somewhere in the platonic world or >in the multiverse, and so in a certain sense, is conscious, but this seems a >bit dubious. Let me try to put it in this way. No physical computer will ever been able to be conscious. No physical brain, no body nor conglomerate of bodies will ever be conscious. Nor will any physical universe be able to contain anything conscious. Only person or psychological beings can be conscious. Now you can associate a mind to a body or to a computer, but you cannot associate a computer, a body, or a universe to a mind. You can, nevertheless associate an infinity of (abstract and possible) body universe or machine to a mind. Computationalism in the cognitive science entails many-bodies for "unique" mind. (almost the opposite of the many-minds interpretation of QM). The physico/psycho traditional link does not work with comp, nor does it work with the MWI. To a 3-describable machine you can associate a mind, It could be polite! But to a pure 1-undescribable experience you cannot attach a machine, you can just attach a sheaf of similar/locally-fungible computational histories. (See links in my URL). Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal
Re: Free will/consciousness/ineffability
- Original Message - From: Marchal <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Monday, October 01, 2001 4:59 PM Subject: Re: Free will/consciousness/ineffability > >Because the state of a computer exists at a level at which it can be > >perfectly known, copied or changed. > > Yes but the computer itself can not find this level in a provable way. > This is not obvious (search for benacerraf in the archive). This is true, but the current state of a computer can always be represented within a finite string. Perhaps the computer cannot ever realize this, as the description will be a part of the computer (ad-infinitum), but as long as I see myself as seperate from the process of the computation, I can objectively describe it in a 'total' manner - I can always describe all the constituent parts that satisfy the circumstance of my definition of a computer. It is by definition, finitely realizable, which isn't really true for things that really exist in the objective world. In reality, I am not completely seperate from the computer as an actual physical object, but it's like an emulation of a computer running on a 'real' computer; code running on the emulated computer, makes no more sense to the actual physical computer its based on than any other arbitrary program would. A physical computer makes no more sense to the 'cosmos' than does any other arbitrary arrangement of objects. > >Let's say we take a snapshot of a consistant conscious computer that's > >been evolved to a certain point. It's possible for me to have created an > >identical computer from nothing, without having the need to evolve it. > >Now the first evolved computer, is consistant and may even have an > >accurate set of memories, reflecting where it is now, and where is has been, > >etc... However, the second created machine, which is in *exactly* the same state > >as the first, has a set of false memories, that we know that it has never > >actually experienced. Its only resort, on the basis of its > >'infallibility' is that it did in fact experience them, but in the platonic (timeless) > >world and not in our own. The consistancy of the computer has not been > >contravened, as perhaps it would have been (as you have said previously) > >if I had simply changed its memory; yet its inner certainty of memory is > >fallible. > > I agree and that is why I believe that IF we are machine THEN we are > immaterial machine. We have never leave Plato heaven if you want. > Now I don't believe "copy of material universe" exists in Platonia. > Appearance of physical universes emerges on the computational histories. > To explain appearnance of lawfulness we need to take into account > *ALL* computational histories. So is a physical computer an immaterial machine, or is it just an example of an immaterial machine, that does actually exist in somewhere in Plationia, or is it neither? Seeing that there is no rigerous way to define what actually constitues a physical computer, and what does not, does it make any sense to say "my desktop computer" has become conscious? As the entire universe is eventually connected, I could prob. show and almost infinite number of such machines, just by choosing arbitary points in space to represent the various units of my computer. >>I agree that there is a problem translating from first person experiene to >>third person reality. However, I believe that memory is a first-person >>experience, as opposed to something that is 'out-there', in the >>'third-person', that has a physical explanation/theory that is more >>fundamental than the actuality of the experience. > > This confirms what I say, you reason quite correctly. Now comp is > my working hypothesis (I don't care at all if comp is true or false). > What I say is that IF comp is true then the apparently 3-person > physical phenomena are in reality the result of interference and > partial sharing of many number theoretical machine anticipations. OK, so memory may be a first person experience to us, but would it be a first person experience to an actual physical computer? All the parts of a physical computer are mutually exclusive and rely on a specific physical organisation, existing in the third-person in relation to each other. Therefore, there is no real sense in which the physical computer is in the first-person with regards to anything. It is always going to perceive its memory in a third-person sense. It perhaps is justified to say that that although this computer specifically is not conscious/1st-person, it is an example of an equivalent that does exist somewhere in the platonic world or in the multiverse, and so in a certain sense, is conscious, but this seems a bit dubious.
Re: Free will/consciousness/ineffability
Neil Lion wrote: >Because the state of a computer exists at a level at which it can be >perfectly known, copied or changed. Yes but the computer itself can not find this level in a provable way. This is not obvious (search for benacerraf in the archive). >Without a physical implemenation, >computation exists purely in the platonic realm. Please Neil, I quite respect the belief in the physical world, but I argue since the begining that such a belief is inconsistent with comp. Physics supervene on the sharable experience of immaterial machines existing in the Platonia. >Consistancy (in the way I >understand that you to mean it) seems to be something we map onto the >external world, rather than something that is inherant in physical nature. >Why does matter need to exist at all? I don't believe in matter (personal opinion) Comp is incompatible (in some sense) with existing matter (my thesis). > >Although I may not be able to convince anyone else of my perceptions, I >can admit to myself that I am sure of them. A computer however, would have >to admit, even to itself, that it was not sure that it had actually >experienced what its memory dictates that it had experienced. Neither are we. I can be sure I feel pain here and now, but not that I had experience it. See previous discussions on both lists. >There is no >way it [the computer] can be certain whatsoever. Why would a computer ever >have an infallible 'inner perception'? Why not. >Let's say we take a snapshot of a consistant conscious computer that's >been evolved to a certain point. It's possible for me to have created an >identical computer from nothing, without having the need to evolve it. Now >the first evolved computer, is consistant and may even have an accurate >set of memories, reflecting where it is now, and where is has been, etc... >However, the second created machine, which is in *exactly* the same state >as the first, has a set of false memories, that we know that it has never >actually experienced. Its only resort, on the basis of its 'infallibility' >is that it did in fact experience them, but in the platonic (timeless) >world and not in our own. The consistancy of the computer has not been >contravened, as perhaps it would have been (as you have said previously) >if I had simply changed its memory; yet its inner certainty of memory is >fallible. I agree and that is why I believe that IF we are machine THEN we are immaterial machine. We have never leave Plato heaven if you want. Now I don't believe "copy of material universe" exists in Platonia. Appearance of physical universes emerges on the computational histories. To explain appearnance of lawfulness we need to take into account *ALL* computational histories. You are quite consistent, Neil. You are saying COMP entails we can always be 3-person fallible, and I say the same. In my thesis I get the 1-person non fallibility simply by defining knowledge by the true (by definition) justifiable assertion. The nuance between true and provable comes from incompleteness phenomena. No doubt comp looks weird, especially for the "religious believer" in universes. >From where exactly do we get our sense of infallible perception? Are we >going to stop short of trying to explain it? I must admit that if there is >a wholly classical explanation of my 'inner certainty', then I have none! Plato propose one in his Thaetetus, which can be translate in arithmetic through Godel, and which explain at least why consistent machine can learn to distinguish 1 and 3 person point of view. Actually it explains why it is quasi-impossible for a consistent machine to believe that it/he/she is a consistent machine. >>Perhaps we just cannot be sure of that link. This has nothing to do >>with infallibility of inner experiences. It is the link between first >>person experience and third person "reality" which can be fallible. > >I agree that there is a problem translating from first person experiene to >third person reality. However, I believe that memory is a first-person >experience, as opposed to something that is 'out-there', in the >'third-person', that has a physical explanation/theory that is more >fundamental than the actuality of the experience. This confirms what I say, you reason quite correctly. Now comp is my working hypothesis (I don't care at all if comp is true or false). What I say is that IF comp is true then the apparently 3-person physical phenomena are in reality the result of interference and partial sharing of many number theoretical machine anticipations. But so we agree. If there is a physical universe then comp is false. Equivalently if comp is true there is no physical universe. Now you could ask me how I can still keep comp because "is it not obvious there is a physical universe?" It is not, especially when you realise that the incompleteness phenomena is enough rich for justifying the appearance of the belief in a universe, with
Re: Free will/consciousness/ineffability
--- Marchal <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Here are comments overlapping > the two parallel lists. > > > Neil Lion wrote (in the FOR list thread "free-will"): > > > >Then this is what I am talking about. Simply, a computer can have no > > >infallible 'inner perception' of memory. > > > Why? If I understand this correctly, I agree. A processing unit is simply a collection of descrete logic functions. They in and of themselves can have no awareness of their member components. Consciousness however seems to reside within the thread that connects these logic elements through cause and effect. > > > >This seems to be a fundamental > >asset of conscious entities, which can have no classical explanation > (and > >computers are entirely classical). > > > No classical explanation? Why? (Is it a dogma?). Dogma is a human construct ment to impose a control scheme on it's unwitting member populace. Please don't mistake religion and dogma for spiritual exploration. They have nothing to do with each other. > > > >I think any fundamental theory of the > >world in which we live, is going to have to address this; > > > See my URL for a systematic attempt to address that very question > with > the hypothesis that we are computer-emulable. > > > >how can I be so > >certain of things, which simply 'don't exist' any more? (if we > accept that > >memory must be more than just a collection of bits). What is the > nature of > >this apparent 'link to the past'? If memory is simply a collection > of > >bits, how can I be so sure that this /representation/ of what I have > > >experienced, is accurate? Assuming time is real and an act must be carried out in some system before one can experience the results elsewhere. I see a monkey-grip on the illusion of cause and effect in most clinical thinking. It's rather unfortunate. > > > Perhaps we just cannot be sure of that link. This has nothing to do > with infallibility of inner experiences. It is the link between first > person experience and third person "reality" which can be fallible. YOu use the word "reality" like there is a perfect reality seperate from that which people perceive. I am certain this is false. > > > >A big hurdle in this, is that although I may be > >convinced that I was there to have perceived such-and-such, there is > no > >way I can convince the outside world of this fact, as all I can ever > do is > >describe that experience, and they > >would have to take my word for the fact that I had actually > experienced it. > > > I agree. You are almost giving the axiomatic definition of > consciousness > I am using. See below. This is because one is attempting to share experiences within a fundamentally flawed construct. That being that we are isolated egos with only a physical medium to express in. >From a mystic standpoint, true sharing is sharing of consciousness. Something I've not seen anyone attempt describe here. Robert W. __ Do You Yahoo!? Get email alerts & NEW webcam video instant messaging with Yahoo! Messenger. http://im.yahoo.com
