Re: Computationalism vs. Comp
On 31 Aug 2005, at 08:26, Lee Corbin wrote: Bruno writes [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I find an assumption of COMP far more tenuous than an assumption of a natural world I respect this. I think that there has been a good deal of confusion between (I) computationalism: the doctrine that robots running classical programs can be conscious (II) Bruno's theories which build on this long-standing belief (computationalism) and which go much further. Choosing words is not always simple. I prefer to reserve the most common clear name STRONG AI thesis for the doctrine that robot/ programs can be conscious. It is stronger than the Turing-like BEHAVIORIST MECH Thesis, according to which a robot/programs can behave like if it was conscious. Now comp is stronger than STRONG AI, which is stronger than BEH-MECH. This confusion has not been helped at all by Bruno continuing to use the term comp indiscriminately for both computationalism (which is also basically functionalism) In practice all functionalist are computationalist, but they believe in some knowable level of substitution. Comp add the necessary nuance that the level cannot be known. Comp is weaker than all precise functionalist theses of the literature. To be clear: Functionnalisme implies comp, and comp makes functionnalism false!!! Thus functionalism is inconsistent, although comp is very near it, but more modest: we cannot know our substitution level. Comp is betting on the truth but unprovability of some weak form of functionalism. and his valiant attempts to derive his comp from computationalism (involving use of Gödel's Theorem, etc.) I derive physics from comp. Cryptically physics is given by an integral (measure) on incompleteness. It must be added that I have *never* --- since 1965 when I argued for (what I didn't know was called) computationalism against others in my high school. It must also be stressed that Turing's most famous essay embraced what is today called *computationalism* and which---basically--- was called functionalism in the 1980's and 1990's. Let us try to stick on the names which have already been chosen. The YD (Bruno's rather picturesque way of describing uploading) Yes. It is no more than that. But this helps for making the UDA reasoning more easy. has also been argued about---especially by cryonicists---for over twenty-five years. When I first became a acquainted with it, we all called it downloading: the notion that one's consciousness could be downloaded into a piece of silicon, with all the advantages of speed, durability, and backup capabilities that this entails. Indeed. In 1989 or so the people that I hang out with began to call this uploading instead. You'll have no trouble with Google finding all the thousands of emails and papers written about uploading. The name was changed when it was realized that downloading oneself into a small or large silicon device had many disadvantages over uploading one's self into distributed, possibly Solar System wide, communications nets. TO BE SURE: the main point of contention among people is still whether functionalism is true. So, just remember comp is the statement that there is a level of substitution where I survive classical digital uploading. Functionalist never takes into account the fact that we cannot know the level. So I reserve the term comp for the case we acknowledge that ignorance. Functionalist theory can be correct by betting correctly the right level, but for getting the physics from comp you need to take explicitly into account our comp-ignorance. It is many subtleties of that kind which make very useful the use of the non-trivial logic of self-reference. Is it true, in other words, that if it sounds like a duck, walks like a duck, and acts in every way like a duck, then it's a duck!? We who say *yes* to computationalism and functionalism are not in the same camp, as Stephen Paul King points out, as a number of notable theorists like Roger Penrose, who believe in their bones that there has to be a connection between quantum mechanics and consciousness. On the contrary, people who dismiss functionalism (computationalism) will hopefully realize their mistake before long if (when) robots attain the same behavioral capabilities that humans have. People will have artificial brain before, I would think. On the other hand, if this proves to be truly impossible without quantum computation, then we computationalists will have to admit that we were wrong. Actually comp, in the sense I am talking since the beginning, is not incompatible with us being quantum machine. The non cloning theorem does not make it impossible for the Universal Dovetailer to generate all my quantuml digital states and to emlulates the quantum computational histories. It generates a exponential slowing down, but the quantum first person generated cannot be aware
Re: Computationalism vs. Comp
On 31 Aug 2005, at 08:26, Lee Corbin wrote: Bruno writes [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I find an assumption of COMP far more tenuous than an assumption of a natural world I respect this. I think that there has been a good deal of confusion between (I) computationalism: the doctrine that robots running classical programs can be conscious (II) Bruno's theories which build on this long-standing belief (computationalism) and which go much further. Choosing words is not always simple. I prefer to reserve the most common clear name STRONG AI thesis for the doctrine that robot/ programs can be conscious. It is stronger than the Turing-like BEHAVIORIST MECH Thesis, according to which a robot/programs can behave like if it were conscious. Now comp is stronger than STRONG AI, which is stronger than BEH-MECH. I prefer to keep comp for YD+CT+AR, and COMP for its translation in the language of a lobian machine, a state which we are still a long way from in the list (due to the hardness to go through the barrier of mathematical logic). This confusion has not been helped at all by Bruno continuing to use the term comp indiscriminately for both computationalism (which is also basically functionalism) In practice all functionalist are computationalist, but they believe in some knowable level of substitution. Comp add the necessary nuance that the level cannot be known. Comp is weaker than all precise functionalist theses of the literature. To be clear: Functionnalisme implies comp, and comp makes functionnalism false!!! Thus functionalism is inconsistent, although comp is very near it, but more modest: we cannot know our substitution level. Comp is betting on the truth but unprovability of some weak form of functionalism. and his valiant attempts to derive his comp from computationalism (involving use of Gödel's Theorem, etc.) I derive physics from comp. Cryptically physics is given by an integral (measure) on incompleteness. It must be added that I have *never* --- since 1965 when I argued for (what I didn't know was called) computationalism against others in my high school. It must also be stressed that Turing's most famous essay embraced what is today called *computationalism* and which---basically--- was called functionalism in the 1980's and 1990's. Let us try to stick on the names which have already been chosen. The YD (Bruno's rather picturesque way of describing uploading) Yes. It is no more than that. But this helps for making the UDA reasoning more easy. has also been argued about---especially by cryonicists---for over twenty-five years. When I first became a acquainted with it, we all called it downloading: the notion that one's consciousness could be downloaded into a piece of silicon, with all the advantages of speed, durability, and backup capabilities that this entails. Indeed. In 1989 or so the people that I hang out with began to call this uploading instead. You'll have no trouble with Google finding all the thousands of emails and papers written about uploading. The name was changed when it was realized that downloading oneself into a small or large silicon device had many disadvantages over uploading one's self into distributed, possibly Solar System wide, communications nets. TO BE SURE: the main point of contention among people is still whether functionalism is true. So, just remember comp is the statement that there is a level of substitution where I survive classical digital uploading. Functionalist never takes into account the fact that we cannot know the level. So I reserve the term comp for the case we acknowledge that ignorance. Functionalist theory can be correct by betting correctly the right level, but for getting the physics from comp you need to take explicitly into account our comp-ignorance. It is many subtleties of that kind which make very useful the use of the non-trivial logic of self-reference. Is it true, in other words, that if it sounds like a duck, walks like a duck, and acts in every way like a duck, then it's a duck!? We who say *yes* to computationalism and functionalism are not in the same camp, as Stephen Paul King points out, as a number of notable theorists like Roger Penrose, who believe in their bones that there has to be a connection between quantum mechanics and consciousness. On the contrary, people who dismiss functionalism (computationalism) will hopefully realize their mistake before long if (when) robots attain the same behavioral capabilities that humans have. People will have artificial brain before, I would think. On the other hand, if this proves to be truly impossible without quantum computation, then we computationalists will have to admit that we were wrong. Actually comp, in the sense I am talking since the beginning, is not incompatible with us being quantum machine. The non cloning theorem
