Re: Maudlin's Demon (Argument)
Hi George, I think that we agree on the main line. Note that I never have pretended that the conjunction of comp and weak materialism (the doctrine which asserts the existence of primary matter) gives a contradiction. What the filmed-graph and/or Maudlin shows is that comp makes materialism empty of any explicative power, so that your ether image is quite appropriate. Primary matter makes, through comp, the observation of matter (physics) and of course qualia, devoied of any explanation power even about just the apparent presence of physical laws. I do think nevertheless that you could be a little quick when asserting that the mind-body problem is solved at the outset when we abandon the postulate of an objective (I guess you mean physical) world. I hope you believe in some objective world, being it number theoretical or computer science theoretical, etc. You point 3) (see below) is quite relevant sure, Bruno Le 08-oct.-07, à 05:10, George Levy a écrit : Bruno Marchal wrote: I think that Maudlin refers to the conjunction of the comp hyp and supervenience, where consciousness is supposed to be linked (most of the time in a sort of real-time way) to the *computational activity* of the brain, and not to the history of any of the state occurring in that computation. If you decide to attach consciousness to the whole physical history, then you can perhaps keep comp by making the substitution level very low, but once the level is chosen, I am not sure how you will make it possible for the machine to distinguish a purely arithmetical version of that history (in the arithmetical plenitude (your wording)) from a genuinely physical one (and what would that means?). Hmmm... perhaps I am quick here ... May be I also miss your point. This is vastly more complex than the seven first steps of UDA, sure. I have to think how to make this transparently clear or ... false. As you know I believe that the physical world can be derived from consciousness operating on a platonic arithmetic plenitude. Consequently, tokens describing objective instances in a physical world cease to be fundamental. Instead, platonic types become fundamentals. In the platonic world each type exists only once. Hence the whole concept of indexicals looses its functionality. Uniqueness of types leads naturally to the merging universes: If two observers together with the world that they observe (within a light cone for example) are identical then these two observers are indistinguishable from themselves and are actually one and the same. I have argued (off list) about my platonic outlook versus the more established (objective reality) Aristotelian viewpoint and I was told that I am attempting to undo more than 2000 years of philosophy going back to Plato. Dealing with types only presents formidable logical difficulties: How can types exist without tokens? I find extremely difficult to prove that the absence of an objective reality at the fundamental level. Similarly, about a century ago people were asking how can light travel without Ether. How can one prove that Ether does not exist? Of course one can't but one can show that Ether is not necessary to explain wave propagation. Similarly, I think that the best one can achieve is to show that the objective world is not necessary for consciousness to exist and to perceive or observe a world. However, some points can be made: getting rid of the objective world postulate has the following advantages: 1) The resulting theory (or model) is simpler and more universal (Occam Razor) 2) The mind-body problem is eliminated at the outset. 3) Physics has been evolving toward greater and greater emphasis on the observer. So why not go all the way and see what happens? I don't find Maudlin argument convincing. Recording the output of a computer and replaying the recording spreads out the processing in time and can be used to link various processes across time but does not prove that the consciousness is independent of a physical substrate. Rearranging a tape interferes with the thought experiment and should not be allowed if we are going to play fair. By the way, I find the phrases supervenience and physical supervenience confusing. At first glance I am not sure if physical supervenience means the physical world supervening on the mental world or vice versa. I would prefer to use the active tense and say the physical world supervening on the mental world, or even use the expression the physical world acting as a substrate for consciousness. 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
Re: Maudlin's Demon (Argument)
Ho Bruno Sorry, I have been unclear with myself and with you. I have been lumping together the assumption of an objective physical world and an objective platonic world. So you are right, I do reject the objective physical world, but why stop there? Is there a need for an objective platonic world? Would it be possible to go one more step - the last step hopefully - and show that a the world that we perceive is solely tied to our own consciousness? So I am more extreme than you thought. I believe that the only necessary assumption is the subjective world. Just like Descartes said: Cogito... I think that the world and consciousness co-emerge together, and the rules governing one are tied to the rules governing the other. In a sense Church's thesis is tied to the Anthropic principle. Subjective reality also ties in nicely with relativity and with the relative formulation of QT. This being said, I am not denying physical reality or objective reality. However these may be derivable from purely subjective reality. Our experience of a common physical reality and a common objective reality require the existence of common physical frame of reference and a common platonic frame of reference respectively. A common platonic frame of reference implies that there are other platonic frames of references.This is unthinkable... literally. Maybe I have painted myself into a corner Yet maybe not... No one in this Universe can say... George Bruno Marchal wrote: Hi George, I think that we agree on the main line. Note that I never have pretended that the conjunction of comp and weak materialism (the doctrine which asserts the existence of primary matter) gives a contradiction. What the filmed-graph and/or Maudlin shows is that comp makes materialism empty of any explicative power, so that your ether image is quite appropriate. Primary matter makes, through comp, the observation of matter (physics) and of course qualia, devoied of any explanation power even about just the apparent presence of physical laws. I do think nevertheless that you could be a little quick when asserting that the mind-body problem is solved at the outset when we abandon the postulate of an objective (I guess you mean physical) world. I hope you believe in some objective world, being it number theoretical or computer science theoretical, etc. You point 3) (see below) is quite relevant sure, Bruno Le 08-oct.-07, à 05:10, George Levy a écrit : Bruno Marchal wrote: I think that Maudlin refers to the conjunction of the comp hyp and supervenience, where consciousness is supposed to be linked (most of the time in a sort of real-time way) to the *computational activity* of the brain, and not to the history of any of the state occurring in that computation. If you decide to attach consciousness to the whole physical history, then you can perhaps keep comp by making the substitution level very low, but once the level is chosen, I am not sure how you will make it possible for the machine to distinguish a purely arithmetical version of that history (in the arithmetical plenitude (your wording)) from a genuinely physical one (and what would that means?). Hmmm... perhaps I am quick here ... May be I also miss your point. This is vastly more complex than the seven first steps of UDA, sure. I have to think how to make this transparently clear or ... false. As you know I believe that the physical world can be derived from consciousness operating on a platonic arithmetic plenitude. Consequently, tokens describing objective instances in a physical world cease to be fundamental. Instead, platonic types become fundamentals. In the platonic world each type exists only once. Hence the whole concept of indexicals looses its functionality. Uniqueness of types leads naturally to the merging universes: If two observers together with the world that they observe (within a light cone for example) are identical then these two observers are indistinguishable from themselves and are actually one and the same. I have argued (off list) about my platonic outlook versus the more established (objective reality) Aristotelian viewpoint and I was told that I am attempting to undo more than 2000 years of philosophy going back to Plato. Dealing with types only presents formidable logical difficulties: How can types exist without tokens? I find extremely difficult to prove that the absence of an objective reality at the fundamental level. Similarly, about a century ago people were asking how can light travel without Ether. How can one prove that Ether does not exist? Of course one can't but one can show that Ether is not necessary to explain wave propagation. Similarly, I think that the best one can achieve is to show that the objective world is not necessary for consciousness to exist and to perceive or observe a world. However, some points can be made: getting rid of the objective world postulate has the following
Re: Maudlin's Demon (Argument)
Hi George, Le 03-oct.-07, à 01:52, George Levy a écrit : Hi Bruno, Yes I am still on the list, barely trying to keep up, but I have been very busy. Actually the ball was in my court and I was supposed to answer to your last post to me about a year ago!!!. Generally I agree with you on many things but here I am just playing the devils' advocate. The Maudlin experiment reminds me of an attempt to prove the falsity of the second law of thermodynamics using Newton's demon. As you probably know, this attempt fails because the thermodynamics effect on the demon is neglected when in fact it should not be The Newton Demon experiment is not thermodynamically closed. If you include the demon in a closed system, then the second law is correct. Similarly, Maudlin's experiment is not informationally closed because Maudlin has interjected himself into his own experiment! The accidentally correctly operating machines need to have their tape rearranged to work correctly and Maudlin is the agent doing the rearranging. So essentially Maudlin's argument is not valid as an attack on physical supervenience. I am not sure. physical supervenience is well defined (actually this is my terming, Maudlin just say supervenience). But here you are changing the definition of supervenience, and it seems to me you have to abandon comp for doing that. If comp and supervenience is correct the later machine (OLYMPIA + the KLARAs) should be conscious, with or without Maudlin's interjection. Yes, you are right from a logical point of view, but only by assuming some form of non-computationalism. With comp + physical supervenience, you have to attach a consciousness to the active boolean graph, and then, by physical supervenience, to the later process, which do no more compute. (And then Maudlin shows that you can change the second process so that it computes again, but without any physical activity of the kind relevant to say that you implement a computation. So, physical supervenience is made wrong. Yes but Maudlin cheated by interjecting himself into his experiment. So this argument does not count. I think that Maudlin refers to the conjunction of the comp hyp and supervenience, where consciousness is supposed to be linked (most of the time in a sort of real-time way) to the *computational activity* of the brain, and not to the history of any of the state occurring in that computation. If you decide to attach consciousness to the whole physical history, then you can perhaps keep comp by making the substitution level very low, but once the level is chosen, I am not sure how you will make it possible for the machine to distinguish a purely arithmetical version of that history (in the arithmetical plenitude (your wording)) from a genuinely physical one (and what would that means?). Hmmm... perhaps I am quick here ... May be I also miss your point. This is vastly more complex than the seven first steps of UDA, sure. I have to think how to make this transparently clear or ... false. I will also be more and more busy the next two month, so I can also take some time for commenting posts. Best, 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: Maudlin's Demon (Argument)
Oops: replace Newton's demon by Maxwell's demon. George George Levy wrote: Hi Bruno, Yes I am still on the list, barely trying to keep up, but I have been very busy. Actually the ball was in my court and I was supposed to answer to your last post to me about a year ago!!!. Generally I agree with you on many things but here I am just playing the devils' advocate. The Maudlin experiment reminds me of an attempt to prove the falsity of the second law of thermodynamics using Newton's demon. As you probably know, this attempt fails because the thermodynamics effect on the demon is neglected when in fact it should not be The Newton Demon experiment is not thermodynamically closed. If you include the demon in a closed system, then the second law is correct. Similarly, Maudlin's experiment is not informationally closed because Maudlin has interjected himself into his own experiment! The accidentally correctly operating machines need to have their tape rearranged to work correctly and Maudlin is the agent doing the rearranging. So essentially Maudlin's argument is not valid as an attack on physical supervenience. As you know, I am at the extreme end of the spectrum with regards the physical world supervening on consciousness. (Mind over matter instead of matter over mind), so I would very much like to see an argument that could prove it, but in my opinion Maudlin's does not cut it. More comments below. Bruno Marchal wrote: Hi George, Are you still there on the list? I am really sorry to (re)discover your post just now, with a label saying that I have to answer it, but apparently I didn't. So here is the answer, with a delay of about one year :( Le 08-oct.-06, à 08:00, George Levy wrote : Finally I read your filmed graph argument which I have stored in my computer. (The original at the Iridia web site http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/bxlthesis/Volume3CC/3%20%202%20.pdf is not accessible anymore. I am not sure why.) Apparently it works now. You have to scroll on the pdf document to see the text. In page TROIS -61 you describe an experience of consciousness which is comprised partially of a later physical process and partially of the recording of an earlier physical process. Right. It is possible to resolve the paradox simply by saying that consciousness involves two partial processes ... Why? With comp, consciousness can be associated with the active boolean graph, the one which will be recorded. No need of the second one. Yes, but in the eyes of a materialist but I have restored the possibility that consciousness can supervene on the physical. I have exposed Maudlin's trickery. I agree that consciousness can be associated with a boolean graph and that there is no need for physical substrate. However, Maudlin does not prove this case because he got involved in his own experiment. ... each occupying two different time intervals, the time intervals being connected by a recording, such that the earlier partial process is combined with the later partial process, the recording acting as a connection device. But is there any sense in which consciousness can supervene on the later partial process? All the trouble is there, because the later process has the same physical process-features than the active brain, although by construction there is no sense to attribute it any computational process (like a movie). I am not saying that consciousness supervene on the physical substrate. ok. All I am saying is that the example does not prove that consciousness does not supervene the physical. Yes, you are right from a logical point of view, but only by assuming some form of non-computationalism. With comp + physical supervenience, you have to attach a consciousness to the active boolean graph, and then, by physical supervenience, to the later process, which do no more compute. (And then Maudlin shows that you can change the second process so that it computes again, but without any physical activity of the kind relevant to say that you implement a computation. So, physical supervenience is made wrong. Yes but Maudlin cheated by interjecting himself into his experiment. So this argument does not count. The example is just an instance of consciousness operating across two different time intervals by mean of a physical substrate and a physical means (recording) of connecting these two time intervals. The problem is that with comp, consciousness has to be associated to the first process, and by physical supervenience, it has to be attached also to the second process. But then you can force the second process to do the correct computation (meaning that it handles the counterfactuals), without any genuine physical activity (reread Maudlin perhaps, or its translation in term of filmed graph like in chapter trois of Conscience et Mécanisme). So,
Re: Maudlin's Demon (Argument)
Hi George, Are you still there on the list? I am really sorry to (re)discover your post just now, with a label saying that I have to answer it, but apparently I didn't. So here is the answer, with a delay of about one year :( Le 08-oct.-06, à 08:00, George Levy wrote : Finally I read your filmed graph argument which I have stored in my computer. (The original at the Iridia web site http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/bxlthesis/Volume3CC/3%20%202%20.pdf is not accessible anymore. I am not sure why.) Apparently it works now. You have to scroll on the pdf document to see the text. In page TROIS -61 you describe an experience of consciousness which is comprised partially of a later physical process and partially of the recording of an earlier physical process. Right. It is possible to resolve the paradox simply by saying that consciousness involves two partial processes ... Why? With comp, consciousness can be associated with the active boolean graph, the one which will be recorded. No need of the second one. ... each occupying two different time intervals, the time intervals being connected by a recording, such that the earlier partial process is combined with the later partial process, the recording acting as a connection device. But is there any sense in which consciousness can supervene on the later partial process? All the trouble is there, because the later process has the same physical process-features than the active brain, although by construction there is no sense to attribute it any computational process (like a movie). I am not saying that consciousness supervene on the physical substrate. ok. All I am saying is that the example does not prove that consciousness does not supervene the physical. Yes, you are right from a logical point of view, but only by assuming some form of non-computationalism. With comp + physical supervenience, you have to attach a consciousness to the active boolean graph, and then, by physical supervenience, to the later process, which do no more compute. (And then Maudlin shows that you can change the second process so that it computes again, but without any physical activity of the kind relevant to say that you implement a computation. So, physical supervenience is made wrong. The example is just an instance of consciousness operating across two different time intervals by mean of a physical substrate and a physical means (recording) of connecting these two time intervals. The problem is that with comp, consciousness has to be associated to the first process, and by physical supervenience, it has to be attached also to the second process. But then you can force the second process to do the correct computation (meaning that it handles the counterfactuals), without any genuine physical activity (reread Maudlin perhaps, or its translation in term of filmed graph like in chapter trois of Conscience et Mécanisme). So, postulating comp, we have to associate the many possible physical brains to a type of computation, and not the inverse. Does this help? 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: Maudlin's Demon (Argument)
Hi Bruno, Yes I am still on the list, barely trying to keep up, but I have been very busy. Actually the ball was in my court and I was supposed to answer to your last post to me about a year ago!!!. Generally I agree with you on many things but here I am just playing the devils' advocate. The Maudlin experiment reminds me of an attempt to prove the falsity of the second law of thermodynamics using Newton's demon. As you probably know, this attempt fails because the thermodynamics effect on the demon is neglected when in fact it should not be The Newton Demon experiment is not thermodynamically closed. If you include the demon in a closed system, then the second law is correct. Similarly, Maudlin's experiment is not informationally closed because Maudlin has interjected himself into his own experiment! The accidentally correctly operating machines need to have their tape rearranged to work correctly and Maudlin is the agent doing the rearranging. So essentially Maudlin's argument is not valid as an attack on physical supervenience. As you know, I am at the extreme end of the spectrum with regards the physical world supervening on consciousness. (Mind over matter instead of matter over mind), so I would very much like to see an argument that could prove it, but in my opinion Maudlin's does not cut it. More comments below. Bruno Marchal wrote: Hi George, Are you still there on the list? I am really sorry to (re)discover your post just now, with a label saying that I have to answer it, but apparently I didn't. So here is the answer, with a delay of about one year :( Le 08-oct.-06, à 08:00, George Levy wrote : Finally I read your filmed graph argument which I have stored in my computer. (The original at the Iridia web site http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/bxlthesis/Volume3CC/3%20%202%20.pdf is not accessible anymore. I am not sure why.) Apparently it works now. You have to scroll on the pdf document to see the text. In page TROIS -61 you describe an experience of consciousness which is comprised partially of a later physical process and partially of the recording of an earlier physical process. Right. It is possible to resolve the paradox simply by saying that consciousness involves two partial processes ... Why? With comp, consciousness can be associated with the active boolean graph, the one which will be recorded. No need of the second one. Yes, but in the eyes of a materialist but I have restored the possibility that consciousness can supervene on the physical. I have exposed Maudlin's trickery. I agree that consciousness can be associated with a boolean graph and that there is no need for physical substrate. However, Maudlin does not prove this case because he got involved in his own experiment. ... each occupying two different time intervals, the time intervals being connected by a recording, such that the earlier partial process is combined with the later partial process, the recording acting as a connection device. But is there any sense in which consciousness can supervene on the later partial process? All the trouble is there, because the later process has the same physical process-features than the active brain, although by construction there is no sense to attribute it any computational process (like a movie). I am not saying that consciousness supervene on the physical substrate. ok. All I am saying is that the example does not prove that consciousness does not supervene the physical. Yes, you are right from a logical point of view, but only by assuming some form of non-computationalism. With comp + physical supervenience, you have to attach a consciousness to the active boolean graph, and then, by physical supervenience, to the later process, which do no more compute. (And then Maudlin shows that you can change the second process so that it computes again, but without any physical activity of the kind relevant to say that you implement a computation. So, physical supervenience is made wrong. Yes but Maudlin cheated by interjecting himself into his experiment. So this argument does not count. The example is just an instance of consciousness operating across two different time intervals by mean of a physical substrate and a physical means (recording) of connecting these two time intervals. The problem is that with comp, consciousness has to be associated to the first process, and by physical supervenience, it has to be attached also to the second process. But then you can force the second process to do the correct computation (meaning that it handles the counterfactuals), without any genuine physical activity (reread Maudlin perhaps, or its translation in term of filmed graph like in chapter trois of Conscience et Mécanisme). So, postulating comp, we have to associate the many possible physical brains to a type of computation, and not the
Re: Maudlin's Demon (Argument)
Le 11-oct.-06, à 05:46, George Levy a écrit : snip: I will comment at ease later> Therefore from the point of view of the second machine, the first machine appears conscious. Note that for the purpose of the argument WE don't have to assume initially that the second machine IS conscious, only that it can detect if the first machine is conscious. Now once we establish that the first machine is conscious we can infer that the second machine is also conscious simply because it is identical. How could any machine detect that another machine is conscious? I am not sure this makes sense imo. We have to come back on this in late november. I'll be traveling to France in early November. We'll leave the detailed discussion for later in November. I go to Bergen (Norway) tomorrow where I will present the AUDA (Arithmetical UDA). The list has receive the info, see here: http://www.mail-archive.com/everything-list@eskimo.com/msg11097.html We will most probably have some opportunity to e-talk before your trip in France, Bye, 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 everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Maudlin's Demon (Argument)
Le 09-oct.-06, à 21:54, George Levy a écrit : To observe a split consciousness, you need an observer who is also split, ? in sync with the split consciousness, across time, space, substrate and level (a la Zelazny - Science Fiction writer). In your example, for an observer to see consciousness in the machine, he must be willing to exist at the earlier interval, skip over the time delay carrying the recording and resume his existence at the later interval. If he observes only a part of the whole thing, say the recording, he may conclude that the machine is not conscious. This is unclear for me. Unless you are just saying like Leibniz that you will not see consciousness in a brain by examining it under a microscope. Note also that I could attribute consciousness to a recording, but this makes sense only if the recording is precise enough so that I could add the Klaras or anything which would make it possible to continue some conversation with the system. And then I do not attribute consciousness to the physical appearance of the system, but to some people which manifests him/it/herself through it. In addition, if we are going to split consciousness maximally in this fashion, the concept of observer becomes important, something you do not include in your example. Could you elaborate. I don't understand. As a consequence of the reasoning the observer (like the knower, the feeler) will all be very important (and indeed will correspond to the hypostases (n-person pov) in the AUDA). But in the reasoning, well either we are valid going from one step to the next or not, and I don't see the relevance of your point here. I guess I miss something. (**) I am open to thoroughly discuss this, for example in november. Right now I am a bit over-busy (until the end of october). OK. Take your time. I will, thanks. In the meanwhile I would appreciate if you could elaborate your point. 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 everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Maudlin's Demon (Argument)
George and List: a very naive question (even more than my other posts) since I miss lots of posts that have been exuded on this list (since a decade or so of my incompletely reading it): Has it been ever formulated (and accepted on this list!) what we mean by the verb "to observe"? What does an 'observer' do in its (not his!!!) 'observer minute'? WHAT (and not 'who') is an observer? I did not 'study' the concept just developed a feeling. Observer in this feeling is "anything" (including 'anybody') that absorbs some (any?) information - of courseaccording tomy vocabulary as a difference to be acknowledged/absorbed. An electron is an observer to the potential it senses/follows and a reader/viewer is an observer of Shakespeare's plays. And anything in between. - This ID implies a target of the attention, not only the 'blank' observation itself. In this sense it is in the ballpark of the consciousness domain, in my identification, of course, which calls for acknowledgment of and response to (my!) information as the *process* of that darn consciousness. (Including memory/experience, decisionmaking, moving the body or else, both sensorially and ideationally). Which comes close to an 'observer' being conscious. Not bad even for a machine, what WE ARE ourselves as well (Bruno). (Well, also 'gods', for that matter). A thermostat observes and responds consciously - at its own level. Not at the level of I.Kant. John M - Original Message - From: George Levy To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Monday, October 09, 2006 5:55 PM Subject: Re: Maudlin's Demon (Argument) David Nyman wrote: On Oct 9, 8:54 pm, George Levy [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: To observe a split consciousness, you need an observer who is also split, in sync with the split consciousness, across time, space, substrate and level (a la Zelazny - Science Fiction writer). In your example, for an observer to see consciousness in the machine, he must be willing to exist at the earlier interval, skip over the time delay carrying the recording and resume his existence at the later interval. If he observes only a part of the whole thing, say the recording, he may conclude that the machine is not conscious. Careful, George. Remember the observer *is* the machine. Consequently he's never in a position to 'conclude that the machine is not conscious', because in that case, it is precisely *he* that is not conscious. There is no question that the machine needs to be conscious - this is the whole point of the experiment - The observer *may* be the machine, but does not have to be (we could conduct a Turing test for example). In any case I think there may be great benefit in decoupling the observer function explicitely. The presence of such an observer and its location with respect the machine will force the issue on the first and third person perspective.In fact the consciousness of the observer is not really at issue. What I think is at issue is the consciousness of the machine as seen from different perspectives. It may even be sufficient to make the observer some kind of testing program running on a computer. But you're right IMO that the the concatenation of these observer moments represents the observer's conscious 'existence in time' . The 1-person narrative of this concatenation is what comprises IMO, the A-series (i.e. the conscious discriminability of observer moments arising from the consistent 1-person compresence of global and local aspects of the observer), whereas any 3-person account of this is necessarily stripped back to a B-series that reduces, ultimately, to Planck-length 'snapshots' devoid of temporality. David --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Maudlin's Demon (Argument)
Bruno Marchal wrote: Le 09-oct.-06, 21:54, George Levy a crit : To observe a split consciousness, you need an observer who is also split, ? This is simple. The time/space/substrate/level of the observer must match the time/space/substrate/level of what he observes. The Leibniz analogy is good. In your example if one observes just the recording without observing the earlier creation of the recording and the later utilization of the recording, then one may conclude rightfully that the recording is not conscious. in sync with the split consciousness, across time, space, substrate and level (a la Zelazny - Science Fiction writer). In your example, for an observer to see consciousness in the machine, he must be willing to exist at the earlier interval, skip over the time delay carrying the recording and resume his existence at the later interval. If he observes only a part of the whole thing, say the recording, he may conclude that the machine is not conscious. This is unclear for me. Unless you are just saying like Leibniz that you will not "see" consciousness in a brain by examining it under a microscope. Note also that I could attribute consciousness to a recording, but this makes sense only if the recording is precise enough so that I could add the "Klaras" or anything which would make it possible to continue some conversation with the system. And then I do not attribute consciousness to the physical appearance of the system, but to some people which manifests him/it/herself through it. Adding Klaras complicate the problem but the result is the same. Klaras must be programmed. Programming is like recording, a means for inserting oneself at programming time for later playback at execution time. I have already shown that Maudlin was cheating by rearranging his tape, in effect programming the tape. So I agree with you if you agree that programming the tape sequence is just a means for connecting different pieces of a conscious processes where each piece operates at different times. In addition, if we are going to split consciousness maximally in this fashion, the concept of observer becomes important, something you do not include in your example. Could you elaborate. I don't understand. As a consequence of the reasoning the observer (like the knower, the feeler) will all be very important (and indeed will correspond to the hypostases (n-person pov) in the AUDA). But in the reasoning, well either we are valid going from one step to the next or not, and I don't see the relevance of your point here. I guess I miss something. I do not understand the connection with the hypostases in the AUDA. However, it is true that the conscious machine is its own observer, no matter how split its operation is. (i.e., time sharing, at different levels... etc). However, the examples will be more striking if a separate observer is introduced. Of course the separate observer will have to track the time/space/substrate/level of the machine to observe the machine to be conscious (possibly with a Turing test). Forgive me for insisting on a separate observer, but I think that a relativity approach could bear fruits. You could even get rid of the recording and replace it with random inputs (happy rays in your paper). As you can see with random inputs, the machine is not conscious to an observer anchored in the physical. The machine just appears to follow a random series of states. But if the machine can be observed to be conscious if it is observed precisely at those times when the random inputs match the counterfactual recording. So the observer needs to "open his eyes" precisely only at those times. So the observer needs to be linked in some ways to the machine being conscious. If the observer is the (self reflecting) machine itself there is no problem, the observer will automatically be conscious at those times. If the observer is not the machine, we need to invoke a mechanism that will force him to be conscious at those times. It will have to be almost identical to the machine and will have to accept the same random data So in a sense the observer will have to be a parallel machine with some possible variations as long as these variations are not large enough to make the observer and the machine exist on different time/space/substrate/level. Therefore from the point of view of the second machine, the first machine appears conscious. Note that for the purpose of the argument WE don't have to assume initially that the second machine IS conscious, only that it can detect if the first machine is conscious. Now once we establish that the first machine is conscious we can infer that the second machine is also conscious simply because it is identical. The example is of course a representation of our own (many)world. (**) I am open to thoroughly discuss this, for example in november. Right now I am a bit over-busy (until the end of october).
Re: Maudlin's Demon (Argument)
Le 08-oct.-06, à 08:00, George Levy a écrit : Bruno, Finally I read your filmed graph argument which I have stored in my computer. (The original at the Iridia web site http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/bxlthesis/Volume3CC/3%20%202%20.pdf is not accessible anymore. I am not sure why.) Thanks for telling. I know people a reconfiguring the main server at IRIDIA, I hope it is only that. In page TROIS -61 you describe an experience of consciousness which is comprised partially of a later physical process and partially of the recording of an earlier physical process. It is possible to resolve the paradox simply by saying that consciousness involves two partial processes each occupying two different time intervals, the time intervals being connected by a recording, such that the earlier partial process is combined with the later partial process, the recording acting as a connection device. I mainly agree. But assuming comp it seems to me this is just a question of acceptable implementation of consciousness. Once implemented in any correct ways, the reasoning shows, or is supposed to show, that the inner first person experience cannot be attributed to the physical activity. The physical keep an important role by giving the frame of the possible relative manifestations of the consciousness. But already at this stage, consciousness can no more been attached to it. On the contrary, keeping the comp hyp, the physical must emerge from the coherence of enough possible relative manifestations. I am not saying that consciousness supervene on the physical substrate. All I am saying is that the example does not prove that consciousness does not supervene the physical. The example is just an instance of consciousness operating across two different time intervals by mean of a physical substrate and a physical means (recording) of connecting these two time intervals. In this case, would you take this as an argument for the necessity of the physical, you would change the notion of physical supervenience a lot. You would be attaching consciousness to some history of physical activity. But if you keep comp, you will not been able to use genuinely that past physical activity. If you could, it would be like asking to the doctor an artificial brain with the guarantee that the hardware of that brain has been gone through some genuine physical stories, although no memory of those stories are needed in the computation made by the new (artificial) brain; or if such memory *are* needed, it would mean the doctor has not made the right level choice. Now, when you say the reasoning does not *prove* that consciousness does not supervene the physical, you are correct. But sup-phys says there is no consciousness without the physical, i.e. some physical primary ontology is needed for consciusness, and that is what the reasoning is supposed to be showing absurd: not only we don't need the physical (like thermodynamicians do not need invisible horses pulling cars), but MOVIE-GRAPH + UDA (*) makes obligatory the appearance of the physical emerging from *all* (relative) computations, making twice the concept of primitive matter useless. OK? ...I realize I could be clearer(**) (*) Caution: in Conscience et Mecanisme the movie-graph argument precedes the UD argument (the seven first step of the 8-steps-version of the current UDA). In my Lille thesis, the movie graph follows the UD argument for eliminating the use of the existence of a universe hypothesis; so there are some nuances between the different versions. (**) I am open to thoroughly discuss this, for example in november. Right now I am a bit over-busy (until the end of october). 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 everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Maudlin's Demon (Argument)
Bruno Marchal wrote: Le 08-oct.-06, 08:00, George Levy a crit : Bruno, Finally I read your filmed graph argument which I have stored in my computer. (The original at the Iridia web site http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/bxlthesis/Volume3CC/3%20%202%20.pdf is not accessible anymore. I am not sure why.) Thanks for telling. I know people a reconfiguring the main server at IRIDIA, I hope it is only that. In page TROIS -61 you describe an experience of consciousness which is comprised partially of a later physical process and partially of the recording of an earlier physical process. It is possible to resolve the paradox simply by saying that consciousness involves two partial processes each occupying two different time intervals, the time intervals being connected by a recording, such that the earlier partial process is combined with the later partial process, the recording acting as a connection device. I mainly agree. But assuming comp it seems to me this is just a question of "acceptable" implementation of consciousness. Once implemented in any "correct" ways, the reasoning shows, or is supposed to show, that the inner first person experience cannot be attributed to the physical activity. The "physical" keep an important role by giving the frame of the possible relative manifestations of the consciousness. But already at this stage, consciousness can no more been attached to it. On the contrary, keeping the comp hyp, the physical must emerge from the coherence of "enough" possible relative manifestations. I am not saying that consciousness supervene on the physical substrate. All I am saying is that the example does not prove that consciousness does not supervene the physical. The example is just an instance of consciousness operating across two different time intervals by mean of a physical substrate and a physical means (recording) of connecting these two time intervals. In this case, would you take this as an argument for the necessity of the physical, you would change the notion of physical supervenience a lot. You would be attaching consciousness to some history of physical activity. I agree with all this. I would be changing the notion of physical supervenience such that the physical substrate can be split into time intervals connected by recordings. . But why stop here. We could create an example in which the substrate is maximally split, across time, space, substrate and level. On the other hand, widening the domain of supervenience (time, space, substrate and level) does not seem to eliminate the need for the physical. Here I am arguing against myself... We may solve the problem if we make supervenience recursive, i.e.. software supervening on itself without needing a physical substrate just like photons do not need Ether. In addition, if we are going to split consciousness maximally in this fashion, the concept of observer becomes important, something you do not include in your example. To observe a split consciousness, you need an observer who is also split, in sync with the split consciousness, across time, space, substrate and level (a la Zelazny - Science Fiction writer). In your example, for an observer to see consciousness in the machine, he must be willing to exist at the earlier interval, skip over the time delay carrying the recording and resume his existence at the later interval. If he observes only a part of the whole thing, say the recording, he may conclude that the machine is not conscious. But if you keep comp, you will not been able to use genuinely that past physical activity. If you could, it would be like asking to the doctor an artificial brain with the guarantee that the hardware of that brain has been gone through some genuine physical stories, although no memory of those stories are needed in the computation made by the new (artificial) brain; or if such memory *are* needed, it would mean the doctor has not made the right level choice. Now, when you say the reasoning does not *prove* that consciousness does not supervene the physical, you are correct. But sup-phys says there is no consciousness without the physical, i.e. some physical primary ontology is needed for consciusness, and that is what the reasoning is supposed to be showing absurd: not only we don't need the physical (like thermodynamicians do not need "invisible horses pulling cars"), but MOVIE-GRAPH + UDA (*) makes obligatory the appearance of the physical emerging from *all* (relative) computations, making twice the concept of primitive matter useless. OK? ...I realize I could be clearer(**) (*) Caution: in "Conscience et Mecanisme" the movie-graph argument precedes the UD argument (the seven first step of the 8-steps-version of the current UDA). In my Lille thesis, the movie graph follows the UD argument for eliminating the use of the "existence of a universe hypothesis"; so there are
Re: Maudlin's Demon (Argument)
On Oct 9, 8:54 pm, George Levy [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: To observe a split consciousness, you need an observer who is also split, in sync with the split consciousness, across time, space, substrate and level (a la Zelazny - Science Fiction writer). In your example, for an observer to see consciousness in the machine, he must be willing to exist at the earlier interval, skip over the time delay carrying the recording and resume his existence at the later interval. If he observes only a part of the whole thing, say the recording, he may conclude that the machine is not conscious. Careful, George. Remember the observer *is* the machine. Consequently he's never in a position to 'conclude that the machine is not conscious', because in that case, it is precisely *he* that is not conscious. But you're right IMO that the the concatenation of these observer moments represents the observer's conscious 'existence in time' . The 1-person narrative of this concatenation is what comprises IMO, the A-series (i.e. the conscious discriminability of observer moments arising from the consistent 1-person compresence of global and local aspects of the observer), whereas any 3-person account of this is necessarily stripped back to a B-series that reduces, ultimately, to Planck-length 'snapshots' devoid of temporality. David Bruno Marchal wrote: Le 08-oct.-06, à 08:00, George Levy a écrit : Bruno, Finally I read your filmed graph argument which I have stored in my computer. (The original at the Iridia web site http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/bxlthesis/Volume3CC/3%20%202%20.pdf is not accessible anymore. I am not sure why.) Thanks for telling. I know people a reconfiguring the main server at IRIDIA, I hope it is only that. In page TROIS -61 you describe an experience of consciousness which is comprised partially of a later physical process and partially of the recording of an earlier physical process. It is possible to resolve the paradox simply by saying that consciousness involves two partial processes each occupying two different time intervals, the time intervals being connected by a recording, such that the earlier partial process is combined with the later partial process, the recording acting as a connection device. I mainly agree. But assuming comp it seems to me this is just a question of acceptable implementation of consciousness. Once implemented in any correct ways, the reasoning shows, or is supposed to show, that the inner first person experience cannot be attributed to the physical activity. The physical keep an important role by giving the frame of the possible relative manifestations of the consciousness. But already at this stage, consciousness can no more been attached to it. On the contrary, keeping the comp hyp, the physical must emerge from the coherence of enough possible relative manifestations. I am not saying that consciousness supervene on the physical substrate. All I am saying is that the example does not prove that consciousness does not supervene the physical. The example is just an instance of consciousness operating across two different time intervals by mean of a physical substrate and a physical means (recording) of connecting these two time intervals. In this case, would you take this as an argument for the necessity of the physical, you would change the notion of physical supervenience a lot. You would be attaching consciousness to some history of physical activity.I agree with all this. I would be changing the notion of physical supervenience such that the physical substrate can be split into time intervals connected by recordings. . But why stop here. We could create an example in which the substrate is maximally split, across time, space, substrate and level. On the other hand, widening the domain of supervenience (time, space, substrate and level) does not seem to eliminate the need for the physical. Here I am arguing against myself... We may solve the problem if we make supervenience recursive, i.e.. software supervening on itself without needing a physical substrate just like photons do not need Ether. In addition, if we are going to split consciousness maximally in this fashion, the concept of observer becomes important, something you do not include in your example. To observe a split consciousness, you need an observer who is also split, in sync with the split consciousness, across time, space, substrate and level (a la Zelazny - Science Fiction writer). In your example, for an observer to see consciousness in the machine, he must be willing to exist at the earlier interval, skip over the time delay carrying the recording and resume his existence at the later interval. If he observes only a part of the whole thing, say the recording, he may conclude that the machine is not conscious. But if you keep comp, you will not been able to use genuinely that past physical activity. If you could, it would
Re: Maudlin's Demon (Argument)
Bruno, Finally I read your filmed graph argument which I have stored in my computer. (The original at the Iridia web site http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/bxlthesis/Volume3CC/3%20%202%20.pdf is not accessible anymore. I am not sure why.) In page TROIS -61 you describe an experience of consciousness which is comprised partially of a later physical process and partially of the recording of an earlier physical process. It is possible to resolve the paradox simply by saying that consciousness involves two partial processes each occupying two different time intervals, the time intervals being connected by a recording, such that the earlier partial process is combined with the later partial process, the recording acting as a connection device. I am not saying that consciousness supervene on the physical substrate. All I am saying is that the example does not prove that consciousness does not supervene the physical. The example is just an instance of consciousness operating across two different time intervals by mean of a physical substrate and a physical means (recording) of connecting these two time intervals. George --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Maudlin's Demon (Argument)
Le 07-oct.-06, à 22:24, [EMAIL PROTECTED] a écrit : my reductionism is simple: we have a circle of knowledge base and view the world as limited INTO such model. Well, it is not. The reductionist view enabled homo to step up into technological prowess but did not support an extension of understanding BEYOND the (so far) acquired knowledge-base. We simply cannot FIND OUT what we don't know of the world. Sciences are reductionistic, logic can try to step out, but that is simple sci-fi, use fantasy (imagination?) to bridge ignorance. I am stubborn in I don't know what I don't know. It is a little ambiguous, but if by I you refer to your first person view I could agree with you. But for the 3-person view then, once I bet on a theory I can bet on what I don't know. Example. If I just look at the moon without theory, I cannot know nor describe what I don't know. As soon I bet on a theory, like saying that the moon is a big ball, then I can know a part of what I don't know (like is there life form on that sphere, or what is the shape of the other face of that sphere). From a third person point of view, a theory (a model in your term) is a catalyzer for knowing we don't know much, and then formulating problems and then solving some of them or sometimes changing the theory (the model). Jump outside our knowledge? it is not 'ourselves', it is ALL we know and outside this is NOTHINGNESS for the mind to consider. Blank. In which model (theory)? This is how most of the religions came about. Provide a belief. Scientific theories also provide beliefs. Theology has been extracted from science for political purpose (about 1500 years ago), just to give name for what is really economical if not just xenophobical conflicts. The same happened in the USSR with genetics. No discipline, even math, is vaccine against the possible human misuses. PS Er..., to Markpeaty and other readers of Parfit: I think that his use of the term reductionist is misleading, and due in part to his lack of clearcut distinction between the person points of view. Well said. 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 everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Maudlin's Demon (Argument)
Bruno: once I 'learn' about what you imply as 3rd pers. theory, my personal interpretation absorbs it (partly, distorted, or perfectly) as MY 1st pers. knowledge. It ENTERS my knowledge and from there on I can formulate my 'theories' (models) about it. Whether it is true or not. So when I hear you saying that the moon is a big lighting ball, I know so, it is not 'outside' my circle of information anymore. 3rd pers info is not a catalyst, it is an addition. (Right/wrong, accepted/rejected). * Sorry for the NESS after 'nothing-'. I don't look for a model when there is nothing to be found. Theory? maybeG. * I drew a parallel (with the differences pointed out) between religion and science in an earlier draft. Of course both are belief systems. And I don't think I am talking about 'theology' when I say religion. Th-y is a reductionist science of a non-science. It is the speculation about the belief. ONE belief. It tries to apply secular thinking to mystical stuff: an oxymoron. In the logic of the believers.(Oxym. No2). The Greeks were honest: their gods cheated, lied, were adulterous, raped and stole etc., just as the humans they were simulated after. The JudeoChrIslamics retained mostly the vainness: fishing for praise, the uncritical obedience, (religio?)chauvinism, wrath and punishing, vengefulness and a lot of hypocrisy. Science is subtle: the potentates just prevent the publication, tenure and grants for an opposing point-of-view - the establishment guards its integrity against new theories (enlarged models). John - Original Message - From: Bruno Marchal [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Sunday, October 08, 2006 10:15 AM Subject: Re: Maudlin's Demon (Argument) Le 07-oct.-06, à 22:24, [EMAIL PROTECTED] a écrit : my reductionism is simple: we have a circle of knowledge base and view the world as limited INTO such model. Well, it is not. The reductionist view enabled homo to step up into technological prowess but did not support an extension of understanding BEYOND the (so far) acquired knowledge-base. We simply cannot FIND OUT what we don't know of the world. Sciences are reductionistic, logic can try to step out, but that is simple sci-fi, use fantasy (imagination?) to bridge ignorance. I am stubborn in I don't know what I don't know. It is a little ambiguous, but if by I you refer to your first person view I could agree with you. But for the 3-person view then, once I bet on a theory I can bet on what I don't know. Example. If I just look at the moon without theory, I cannot know nor describe what I don't know. As soon I bet on a theory, like saying that the moon is a big ball, then I can know a part of what I don't know (like is there life form on that sphere, or what is the shape of the other face of that sphere). From a third person point of view, a theory (a model in your term) is a catalyzer for knowing we don't know much, and then formulating problems and then solving some of them or sometimes changing the theory (the model). Jump outside our knowledge? it is not 'ourselves', it is ALL we know and outside this is NOTHINGNESS for the mind to consider. Blank. In which model (theory)? This is how most of the religions came about. Provide a belief. Scientific theories also provide beliefs. Theology has been extracted from science for political purpose (about 1500 years ago), just to give name for what is really economical if not just xenophobical conflicts. The same happened in the USSR with genetics. No discipline, even math, is vaccine against the possible human misuses. PS Er..., to Markpeaty and other readers of Parfit: I think that his use of the term reductionist is misleading, and due in part to his lack of clearcut distinction between the person points of view. Well said. 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 everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Maudlin's Demon (Argument)
Stathis, your post is 'logical', 'professional', 'smart', - good. It shows why we have so many posts on this list and why we get nowhere. You handle an assumption (robot) - its qualia, characteristics, make up a thought-situation and ASK about its annexed details. Now, your style is such that one cannot just disregard the irrelevance. So someone (many, me includedG) respond with similar mindtwists and it goes on and on. \ Have you ever ps-analyzed a robot? Professionally, I mean. If it is a simple digital computer, it certainly has a memory, the one fixed into chips as this PC I am using. Your and MY memory is quite different, I wish somebody could tell me acceptably, HOW???, but it is plastic, approximate, mixed with emotional changes, short and in cases false. I would throw out a robot with such memory. Best regards John Mikes - Original Message - From: Stathis Papaioannou [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Friday, October 06, 2006 8:09 AM Subject: RE: Maudlin's Demon (Argument) John, I should have been more precise with the terms copy and emulate. What I was asking is whether a robot which experiences something while it is shovelling coal (this of course assumes that a robot can have experiences) would experience the same thing if it were fed input to all its sensors exactly the same as if it were doing its job normally, such that it was not aware the inputs were in fact a sham. It seems to me that if the answer is no the robot would need to have some mysterious extra-computational knowledge of the world, which I find very difficult to conceptualise if we are talking about a standard digital computer. It is easier to conceptualise that such non-computational effects may be at play in a biological brain, which would then be an argument against computationalism. Stathis Papaioannou Stathis: let me skip the quoted texts and ask a particular question. - Original Message - From: Stathis Papaioannou [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, October 04, 2006 11:41 PM Subject: RE: Maudlin's Demon (Argument) You wrote: Do you believe it is possible to copy a particular consciousness by emulating it, along with sham inputs (i.e. in virtual reality), on a general purpose computer? Or do you believe a coal-shovelling robot could only have the coal-shovelling experience by actually shovelling coal? Stathis Papaioannou - My question is about 'copy' and 'emulate'. Are we considering 'copying' the model and its content (in which case the coal shoveling robot last sentence applies) or do we include the interconnections unlimited in experience, beyond the particular model we talk about? If we go all the way and include all input from the unlimited totality that may 'format' or 'complete' the model-experience, then we re-create the 'real thing' and it is not a copy. If we restrict our copying to the aspect in question (model) then we copy only that aspect and should not draw conclusions on the total. Can we 'emulate' totality? I don't think so. Can we copy the total, unlimited wholeness? I don't think so. What I feel is a restriction to think within a model and draw conclusions from it towards beyond it. Which looks to me like a category-mistake. John Mikes _ Be one of the first to try Windows Live Mail. http://ideas.live.com/programpage.aspx?versionId=5d21c51a-b161-4314-9b0e-491 1fb2b2e6d -- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.407 / Virus Database: 268.13.0/465 - Release Date: 10/06/06 --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Maudlin's Demon (Argument)
Please see some remarks interleft between -lines. John M - Original Message - From: Bruno Marchal [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Friday, October 06, 2006 9:43 AM Subject: Re: Maudlin's Demon (Argument) Le 05-oct.-06, à 13:55, [EMAIL PROTECTED] a écrit : Can we 'emulate' totality? I don't think so. I don't always insist on that but with just the Church thesis part of comp, it can be argued that we can emulate the third person describable totality, and indeed this is what the Universal Dovetailer do. The key thing, but technical (I was beginning to explain Tom and George), is that such an emulation can be shown to destroy any reductionist account of that totality, and still better, make the first person totality (George's first person plenitude perhaps) infinitely bigger (even non computably bigger, even unameable) than the 3 person totality. There is a Skolem-Carroll phenomena: the first person inside view of the 3-totality is infinitely bigger than the 3-totality, like in the Wonderland where a tree can hide a palace ... JM: my reductionism is simple: we have a circle of knowledge base and view the world as limited INTO such model. Well, it is not. The reductionist view enabled homo to step up into technological prowess but did not support an extension of understanding BEYOND the (so far) acquired knowledge-base. We simply cannot FIND OUT what we don't know of the world. Sciences are reductionistic, logic can try to step out, but that is simple sci-fi, use fantasy (imagination?) to bridge ignorance. I am stubborn in I don't know what I don't know. -- Can we copy the total, unlimited wholeness? Not really. It is like the quantum states. No clonable, but if known, preparable in many quantities. At this stage it is only an analogy. I don't think so. What I feel is a restriction to think within a model and draw conclusions from it towards beyond it. Mmmh... It is here that logician have made progress the last century, but nobody (except the experts) knows about those progress. JM: Those experts must know that it is not confirmable even true. That is why 'they' keep it to themselves. Which looks to me like a category-mistake. It looks, but perhaps it isn't. I agree it seems unbelievable, but somehow,we (the machine) can jump outside ourself ... (with some risk, though). - JM: Jump outside our knowledge? it is not 'ourselves', it is ALL we know and outside this is NOTHINGNESS for the mind to consider. Blank. This is how most of the religions came about. Provide a belief. - Bruno PS Er..., to Markpeaty and other readers of Parfit: I think that his use of the term reductionist is misleading, and due in part to his lack of clearcut distinction between the person points of view. - John - 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-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
RE: Maudlin's Demon (Argument)
John Mikes writes: Stathis, your post is 'logical', 'professional', 'smart', - good. It shows why we have so many posts on this list and why we get nowhere. You handle an assumption (robot) - its qualia, characteristics, make up a thought-situation and ASK about its annexed details. Now, your style is such that one cannot just disregard the irrelevance. So someone (many, me includedG) respond with similar mindtwists and it goes on and on. \ Have you ever ps-analyzed a robot? Professionally, I mean. If it is a simple digital computer, it certainly has a memory, the one fixed into chips as this PC I am using. Your and MY memory is quite different, I wish somebody could tell me acceptably, HOW???, but it is plastic, approximate, mixed with emotional changes, short and in cases false. I would throw out a robot with such memory. I did put in parentheses this of course assumes a robot can have experiences. We can't know that this is so, but it seems a reasonable assumption to me. If we had evolution with digital processors rather than biological processors do you think it would have been possible for animals with similar behaviours to those with which we are familiar to have developed? If so, do you think these animals would not really have experiences despite behaving as if they did? Since evolution can only work on behaviour, if zombie animals were possible why did we not evolve to be zombie animals? Stathis Papaioannou John, I should have been more precise with the terms copy and emulate. What I was asking is whether a robot which experiences something while it is shovelling coal (this of course assumes that a robot can have experiences) would experience the same thing if it were fed input to all its sensors exactly the same as if it were doing its job normally, such that it was not aware the inputs were in fact a sham. It seems to me that if the answer is no the robot would need to have some mysterious extra-computational knowledge of the world, which I find very difficult to conceptualise if we are talking about a standard digital computer. It is easier to conceptualise that such non-computational effects may be at play in a biological brain, which would then be an argument against computationalism. Stathis Papaioannou Stathis: let me skip the quoted texts and ask a particular question. - Original Message - From: Stathis Papaioannou [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, October 04, 2006 11:41 PM Subject: RE: Maudlin's Demon (Argument) You wrote: Do you believe it is possible to copy a particular consciousness by emulating it, along with sham inputs (i.e. in virtual reality), on a general purpose computer? Or do you believe a coal-shovelling robot could only have the coal-shovelling experience by actually shovelling coal? Stathis Papaioannou - My question is about 'copy' and 'emulate'. Are we considering 'copying' the model and its content (in which case the coal shoveling robot last sentence applies) or do we include the interconnections unlimited in experience, beyond the particular model we talk about? If we go all the way and include all input from the unlimited totality that may 'format' or 'complete' the model-experience, then we re-create the 'real thing' and it is not a copy. If we restrict our copying to the aspect in question (model) then we copy only that aspect and should not draw conclusions on the total. Can we 'emulate' totality? I don't think so. Can we copy the total, unlimited wholeness? I don't think so. What I feel is a restriction to think within a model and draw conclusions from it towards beyond it. Which looks to me like a category-mistake. John Mikes _ Be one of the first to try Windows Live Mail. http://ideas.live.com/programpage.aspx?versionId=5d21c51a-b161-4314-9b0e-491 1fb2b2e6d -- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.407 / Virus Database: 268.13.0/465 - Release Date: 10/06/06 _ Be one of the first to try Windows Live Mail. http://ideas.live.com/programpage.aspx?versionId=5d21c51a-b161-4314-9b0e-4911fb2b2e6d --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Maudlin's Demon (Argument)
Stathis Papaioannou wrote: John Mikes writes: Stathis, your post is 'logical', 'professional', 'smart', - good. It shows why we have so many posts on this list and why we get nowhere. You handle an assumption (robot) - its qualia, characteristics, make up a thought-situation and ASK about its annexed details. Now, your style is such that one cannot just disregard the irrelevance. So someone (many, me includedG) respond with similar mindtwists and it goes on and on. \ Have you ever ps-analyzed a robot? Professionally, I mean. If it is a simple digital computer, it certainly has a memory, the one fixed into chips as this PC I am using. Your and MY memory is quite different, I wish somebody could tell me acceptably, HOW???, but it is plastic, approximate, mixed with emotional changes, short and in cases false. I would throw out a robot with such memory. I did put in parentheses this of course assumes a robot can have experiences. We can't know that this is so, but it seems a reasonable assumption to me. If we had evolution with digital processors rather than biological processors do you think it would have been possible for animals with similar behaviours to those with which we are familiar to have developed? If so, do you think these animals would not really have experiences despite behaving as if they did? Since evolution can only work on behaviour, if zombie animals were possible why did we not evolve to be zombie animals? Stathis Papaioannou Of course evolution is not some perfectly efficient optimizer. Julian Jaynes idea the consciousness arises from internalizing speech perception would make consciousness a round-about way of recalling complex practical instructions - one that from a final design standpoint could have been done without the consciousness but from an evolutionary standpoint might have been almost inevitable. I don't know that I buy Jaynes explanation - but it shows that there might well be consciousness even if zombie animals would have done just as well. Brent Meeker --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
RE: Maudlin's Demon (Argument)
Brent Meeker writes: I did put in parentheses this of course assumes a robot can have experiences. We can't know that this is so, but it seems a reasonable assumption to me. If we had evolution with digital processors rather than biological processors do you think it would have been possible for animals with similar behaviours to those with which we are familiar to have developed? If so, do you think these animals would not really have experiences despite behaving as if they did? Since evolution can only work on behaviour, if zombie animals were possible why did we not evolve to be zombie animals? Stathis Papaioannou Of course evolution is not some perfectly efficient optimizer. Julian Jaynes idea the consciousness arises from internalizing speech perception would make consciousness a round-about way of recalling complex practical instructions - one that from a final design standpoint could have been done without the consciousness but from an evolutionary standpoint might have been almost inevitable. I don't know that I buy Jaynes explanation - but it shows that there might well be consciousness even if zombie animals would have done just as well. That's strictly true. It's also possible that consciousness is a byproduct of biological brains but not digital computers performing the same functions, to the point of passing the Turing Test. We'll never know. Stathis Papaioannou _ Be one of the first to try Windows Live Mail. http://ideas.live.com/programpage.aspx?versionId=5d21c51a-b161-4314-9b0e-4911fb2b2e6d --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
RE: Maudlin's Demon (Argument)
John, I should have been more precise with the terms copy and emulate. What I was asking is whether a robot which experiences something while it is shovelling coal (this of course assumes that a robot can have experiences) would experience the same thing if it were fed input to all its sensors exactly the same as if it were doing its job normally, such that it was not aware the inputs were in fact a sham. It seems to me that if the answer is no the robot would need to have some mysterious extra-computational knowledge of the world, which I find very difficult to conceptualise if we are talking about a standard digital computer. It is easier to conceptualise that such non-computational effects may be at play in a biological brain, which would then be an argument against computationalism. Stathis Papaioannou Stathis: let me skip the quoted texts and ask a particular question. - Original Message - From: Stathis Papaioannou [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, October 04, 2006 11:41 PM Subject: RE: Maudlin's Demon (Argument) You wrote: Do you believe it is possible to copy a particular consciousness by emulating it, along with sham inputs (i.e. in virtual reality), on a general purpose computer? Or do you believe a coal-shovelling robot could only have the coal-shovelling experience by actually shovelling coal? Stathis Papaioannou - My question is about 'copy' and 'emulate'. Are we considering 'copying' the model and its content (in which case the coal shoveling robot last sentence applies) or do we include the interconnections unlimited in experience, beyond the particular model we talk about? If we go all the way and include all input from the unlimited totality that may 'format' or 'complete' the model-experience, then we re-create the 'real thing' and it is not a copy. If we restrict our copying to the aspect in question (model) then we copy only that aspect and should not draw conclusions on the total. Can we 'emulate' totality? I don't think so. Can we copy the total, unlimited wholeness? I don't think so. What I feel is a restriction to think within a model and draw conclusions from it towards beyond it. Which looks to me like a category-mistake. John Mikes _ Be one of the first to try Windows Live Mail. http://ideas.live.com/programpage.aspx?versionId=5d21c51a-b161-4314-9b0e-4911fb2b2e6d --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Maudlin's Demon (Argument)
Le 05-oct.-06, à 13:55, [EMAIL PROTECTED] a écrit : Can we 'emulate' totality? I don't think so. I don't always insist on that but with just the Church thesis part of comp, it can be argued that we can emulate the third person describable totality, and indeed this is what the Universal Dovetailer do. The key thing, but technical (I was beginning to explain Tom and George), is that such an emulation can be shown to destroy any reductionist account of that totality, and still better, make the first person totality (George's first person plenitude perhaps) infinitely bigger (even non computably bigger, even unameable) than the 3 person totality. There is a Skolem-Carroll phenomena: the first person inside view of the 3-totality is infinitely bigger than the 3-totality, like in the Wonderland where a tree can hide a palace ... Can we copy the total, unlimited wholeness? Not really. It is like the quantum states. No clonable, but if known, preparable in many quantities. At this stage it is only an analogy. I don't think so. What I feel is a restriction to think within a model and draw conclusions from it towards beyond it. Mmmh... It is here that logician have made progress the last century, but nobody (except the experts) knows about those progress. Which looks to me like a category-mistake. It looks, but perhaps it isn't. I agree it seems unbelievable, but somehow,we (the machine) can jump outside ourself ... (with some risk, though). Bruno PS Er..., to Markpeaty and other readers of Parfit: I think that his use of the term reductionist is misleading, and due in part to his lack of clearcut distinction between the person points of view. 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-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Maudlin's Demon (Argument)
Le 05-oct.-06, à 04:01, Brent Meeker a écrit : There is another possibility: that consciousness is relative to what it is conscious *of* and any computation that implements consciousness must also implement the whole world which the consciousness is conscious of. In that case there may be only one, unique physical universe that implements our consciousness. This is just saying that you generalized brain is the whole physical universe. Then either the physical universe is turing emulable, and in that case the reasoning of Maudlin still work. Or the physical universe is not turing emulable, but then comp is false (giving that here your brain is equal to the whole universe). Note that in general, if your brain is not the entire universe, comp entails that the physical universe is not turing emulable. 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 everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Maudlin's Demon (Argument)
Brent Meeker wrote: There is another possibility: that consciousness is relative to what it is conscious *of* and any computation that implements consciousness must also implement the whole world which the consciousness is conscious of. In that case there may be only one, unique physical universe that implements our consciousness. But this is precisely my point - to sustain supervenience, there must be a *unique* implementation of the 'computation' that is deemed responsible for *unique* effects - in which case we are then free to discard the metaphor of 'computation' and point to the physics as doing the work. Perhaps there needs to be a distinction on this list (or have I just missed it?) between: C1) analyses of consciousness in terms of 'computation', notwithstanding which any 'effect-in-the-world' is seen as reducing to the behaviour of some specific physical implementation (i.e. as defined on a non-computationally-established 'substrate'); C2) 'pure' computational analysis of consciousness, whereby any 'effect-in-the-world' is deemed invariant to 'implementation' (or more precisely, all notions of 'implementation' - and hence 'the world' - are alike defined on a computationally-established 'substrate'). C1 is computational theory within physicalism. C2 is what I understand Bruno et al. to mean by 'comp'. The notion of 'implementation' doesn't disappear in C2, it just becomes a set of nested 'substitution levels' within a recursive computational 'reality'. This can be a major source of confusion IMO. The point remains that you can't consistently hold both C1 and C2 to be true. The belief that there is an invariant mapping between consciousness and 'pure' computation (at the correct substitution level) *entails* a belief in C2, and hence is inconsistent with C1. This doesn't mean that C1 is *false*, but it isn't 'comp'. C1 and C2 have precisely opposite explanatory directions and intent. Hence...you pays your money etc. (but hopefully pending empirical prediction and disconfirmation). This is switching computation in place of consciousness: relying on the idea that every computation is conscious? I don't claim this, but this is apparently what Hofstadter et al. do (IMO egregiously) maintain, having (apparently) missed the notion of substitution level inherent in C2. Under C2, we can't be sure that every 'computation' is conscious: because of substitution uncertainty we always have the choice of saying 'No' to the doctor. Ant Hillary is a case in point - AFAICS the only way to make an ant hill 'conscious' - however you may *interpret* its behaviour - is to eat it (ughh!!) and thereby incorporate it at the correct level of substitution. But for me this would definitely be a case of 'No chef'. David David Nyman wrote: Russell Standish wrote: Maudlin say aha - lets take the recording, and add to it an inert machine that handles the counterfactuals. This combined machine is computationally equivalent to the original. But since the new machine is physically equivalent to a recording, how could consciousness supervene on it. If we want to keep supervenience, there must be something noncomputational that means the first machine is conscious, and the second not. Marchal says consciousness supervenes on neither of the physical machines, but on the abstract computation, and there is only one consciousness involved (not two). Is there not a more general appeal to plausibility open to the non-supervenience argument? We are after all attempting to show the *consequences* of a thoroughgoing assumption of comp, not prove its truth. Under comp, a specific conscious state is taken as mapping to, and consistently co-varying with, some equally specific, but purely computationally defined, entity. The general problem is that any attempt to preserve such consistency of mapping through supervention on a logically and ontically prior 'physical' reality must fail, because under physicalism comp *must* reduce to an arbitrary gloss on the behaviour at an arbitrary level of arbitrarily many *physical* architectures or substrates. There is another possibility: that consciousness is relative to what it is conscious *of* and any computation that implements consciousness must also implement the whole world which the consciousness is conscious of. In that case there may be only one, unique physical universe that implements our consciousness. In other words, a 'computation' can be anything I say it is (cf. Hofstadter for some particularly egregious examples). This is switching computation in place of consciousness: relying on the idea that every computation is conscious? Brent Meeker --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group,
Re: Maudlin's Demon (Argument)
- Original Message - Subject: Re: Maudlin's Demon (Argument) (Brent's quote): David Nyman wrote: (I skip the discussion...) In other words, a 'computation' can be anything I say it is (cf. Hofstadter for some particularly egregious examples). David, could you give us 'some' of these, or at least an URL to find such? John M --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Maudlin's Demon (Argument)
Stathis: let me skip the quoted texts and ask a particular question. - Original Message - From: Stathis Papaioannou [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, October 04, 2006 11:41 PM Subject: RE: Maudlin's Demon (Argument) You wrote: Do you believe it is possible to copy a particular consciousness by emulating it, along with sham inputs (i.e. in virtual reality), on a general purpose computer? Or do you believe a coal-shovelling robot could only have the coal-shovelling experience by actually shovelling coal? Stathis Papaioannou - My question is about 'copy' and 'emulate'. Are we considering 'copying' the model and its content (in which case the coal shoveling robot last sentence applies) or do we include the interconnections unlimited in experience, beyond the particular model we talk about? If we go all the way and include all input from the unlimited totality that may 'format' or 'complete' the model-experience, then we re-create the 'real thing' and it is not a copy. If we restrict our copying to the aspect in question (model) then we copy only that aspect and should not draw conclusions on the total. Can we 'emulate' totality? I don't think so. Can we copy the total, unlimited wholeness? I don't think so. What I feel is a restriction to think within a model and draw conclusions from it towards beyond it. Which looks to me like a category-mistake. John Mikes --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Maudlin's Demon (Argument)
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: In other words, a 'computation' can be anything I say it is (cf. Hofstadter for some particularly egregious examples). David, could you give us 'some' of these, or at least an URL to find such? John I was thinking of various examples in 'Godel, Escher, Bach', and it's years since I read it. Here's a URL I just Googled that may be relevant: http://www.geocities.com/ResearchTriangle/6100/geb.html From memory, Hofstadter decribes 'implementations' of computations that involve the detailed behaviour of anthills, and worse yet, detailed descriptions of 'Einstein's Brain' listed in a book that you can supposedly ask questions and receive answers! Trouble is, Hofstadter is such a brilliantly witty and creative writer that I could never be completely sure whether he was deliberately torturing your credulity by putting these forward as tongue-in-cheek reductios (like Schroedinger with his cat apparently) or whether he was actually serious. I'll have to re-read the book. David - Original Message - Subject: Re: Maudlin's Demon (Argument) (Brent's quote): David Nyman wrote: (I skip the discussion...) In other words, a 'computation' can be anything I say it is (cf. Hofstadter for some particularly egregious examples). David, could you give us 'some' of these, or at least an URL to find such? John M --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Maudlin's Demon (Argument)
David, thanks. Hofstadter's G-E-B is a delightful (BIG) book, I regret that I lost my (voracious ?) reading situation (possibility), especially to re-read it. Just next week I will quote GEB at a recital I will perform for our area music club about the Wohltemperiertes which Bach wrote for his sons to practice their fingers in piano-technique learning. I also loved his translation-book about that French poem of 1 word lines.- I cannot recall in which book I read that he was tricked by AI people into asking esoteric questions from an AI-computer - getting incredible answers, until next day 'they' confessed and showed him the 5 young guys in another room who made up the replies for him. Thanks for the URL To the statement in question here: a 'computation' can be anything I say it is - I find true, as long as I feel free to identify 'comp' as I like (need) it. (Same for 'numbers' and 'consciousness). John - Original Message - From: David Nyman [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Everything List everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Thursday, October 05, 2006 10:38 AM Subject: Re: Maudlin's Demon (Argument) [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: In other words, a 'computation' can be anything I say it is (cf. Hofstadter for some particularly egregious examples). David, could you give us 'some' of these, or at least an URL to find such? John I was thinking of various examples in 'Godel, Escher, Bach', and it's years since I read it. Here's a URL I just Googled that may be relevant: http://www.geocities.com/ResearchTriangle/6100/geb.html From memory, Hofstadter decribes 'implementations' of computations that involve the detailed behaviour of anthills, and worse yet, detailed descriptions of 'Einstein's Brain' listed in a book that you can supposedly ask questions and receive answers! Trouble is, Hofstadter is such a brilliantly witty and creative writer that I could never be completely sure whether he was deliberately torturing your credulity by putting these forward as tongue-in-cheek reductios (like Schroedinger with his cat apparently) or whether he was actually serious. I'll have to re-read the book. David - Original Message - Subject: Re: Maudlin's Demon (Argument) (Brent's quote): David Nyman wrote: (I skip the discussion...) In other words, a 'computation' can be anything I say it is (cf. Hofstadter for some particularly egregious examples). David, could you give us 'some' of these, or at least an URL to find such? John M --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Maudlin's Demon (Argument)
George Levy wrote: The correct conclusion IMHO is that consciousness is independent of time, space, substrate and level and in fact can span all of these just as Maudlin partially demonstrated - but you still need an implementation -- so what is left? Like the Cheshire cat, nothing except the software itself: Consistent logical links operating in a bootstrapping reflexive emergent manner. Surely this is the 'correct conclusion' only given that one first *accepts comp*? We can show that a maximalist comp position (like the UDA argument) cannot depend on 'computationally independent' (i.e. as distinct from 'computationally substituted') physical supervention, at root because such supervention can be shown to be arbitrary. That is: any computation can be implemented in arbitrarily many physical implementations that may incidentally be *interpreted* as being computationally equivalent, without this having the slightest effect on what actually occurs in the world. In other words, given physicalism, comp can only be a metaphor, relying entirely on physics to do whatever work is entailed in acting-in-the-world. For supervention to be true (as it may be) consciousness would have to map to, and co-vary with, *specific* physical processes, that happen incidentally to be capable of interpretation as computations. This is simply entailed by what we mean by physicalism - all complex processes *reduce* in principle to unique physical events. Conversely, for comp to be true, the 'physical' must *emerge* from recursively nested computational operations - i.e. the reverse explanatory direction. This disjunction is in itself is an extremely powerful result with profound, and as yet unresolved, consequences for AI and the study of consciousness. But as to which is true (or neither for that matter) we can only follow the consequences of our assumptions here - 'proof' requires empirically falsifiable prediction and experiment. David List members I scanned Maudlin's paper. Thank you Russell. As I suspected I found a few questionable passages: Page417: line 14: So the spatial sequence of the troughs need not reflect their 'computational sequence'. We may so contrive that any sequence of address lie next to each other spatially. Page 418 line 5: The first step in our construction is to rearrange Klara's tape so that address T[0] to T[N] lie spatially in sequence, T[0] next to T[1] next to T[2], etc... How does Maudlin know how to arrange the order of the tape locations? He must run his task Pi in his head or on a calculator. Maudlin's reaches a quasi religious conclusion when he states: Olympia has shown us a least that some other level beside the computational must be sought. But until we have found that level and until we have explicated the relationship between it and the computational structure, the belief that ...of pure computationalism will ever lead to the creation of artificial minds or the the understanding of natural ones, remains only a pious hope. Let me try to summarize: Maudlin is wrong in concluding that there must be something non-computational necessary for consciouness. Maudlin himself was the unwitting missing consciousness piece inserted in his machine at programming time i.e., the machine's consciouness spanned execution time and programming time. He himself was the unwitting missing piece when he design his tape. The correct conclusion IMHO is that consciousness is independent of time, space, substrate and level and in fact can span all of these just as Maudlin partially demonstrated - but you still need an implementation -- so what is left? Like the Cheshire cat, nothing except the software itself: Consistent logical links operating in a bootstrapping reflexive emergent manner. Bruno is right in applying math/logic to solve the consciousness/physical world (Mind/Body) riddle. Physics can be derived from machine psychology. George Russell Standish wrote: If I can sumarise George's summary as this: In order to generate a recording, one must physically instantiate the conscious computation. Consciousness supervenes on this, presumably. Maudlin say aha - lets take the recording, and add to it an inert machine that handles the counterfactuals. This combined machine is computationally equivalent to the original. But since the new machine is physically equivalent to a recording, how could consciousness supervene on it. If we want to keep supervenience, there must be something noncomputational that means the first machine is conscious, and the second not. Marchal says consciousness supervenes on neither of the physical machines, but on the abstract computation, and there is only one consciousness involved (not two). Of course, this all applies to dreaming machines, or machines hooked up to recordings of the real world. This is where I concentrate my attack on the
Re: Maudlin's Demon (Argument)
Le 03-oct.-06, à 21:33, George Levy a écrit : Bruno, I looked on the web but could not find Maudlin's paper. Mmh... for those working in an institution affiliated to JSTOR, it is available here: http://www.jstor.org/view/0022362x/di973301/97p04115/0 I will search if some free version are available elsewhere, or put a pdf-version on my web page. So I just go by what you are saying. I still stand by the spirit of what I said but I admit to be misleading in stating that Maudlin himself is part of the machine. It is not Maudlin, but Maudlin's proxy or demon, the Klaras which is now parts of the machine. Maudlin used the same trick that Maxwell used. He used a the demon or proxy to perform his (dirty) work. It seems to me that if you trace the information flow you probably can detect that Maudlin is cheating: How are the protoolympia and the Klaras defined? Maudlin is cheating ? No more than a doctor who build an artificial brain by copying an original at some level. Remember we *assume* the comp hypothesis. To design his protoolympia and the Klaras he must start with the information about the machine and the task PI. If he changes task from PI to PIprime than he has to apply a different protoolympia and different Klaras, and he has to intervene in the process! Yes but only once. Changing PI to PIprime would be another thought experiment. I don't see the relevance. I know you got the paper now. It will help in this debate. Maudlin's argument is far from convincing. BTW I thought you did understand the physics/psychology (theology/computer-science/number-theory) reversal. What makes you changing your mind? (just interested). 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 everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Maudlin's Demon (Argument)
Bruno, Stathis, Thank you Stathis for the summary. I do have the paper now and I will read it carefully. Based on Sathis summary I still believe that Maudlin is fallacious. A computer program equivalent to Maudlin's construction can be written as: IF (Input = -27098217872180483080234850309823740127) THEN (Output = 78972398473024802348523948518347109) ELSE Call Conscious_Subroutine ENDIF. If the input 27098217872180483080234850309823740127 is always given then the ELSE clause is never invoked. The point is that to write the above piece of code, Maudlin must go through the trouble of calculating perhaps on his hand calculator the answer 78972398473024802348523948518347109 that the Conscious_Subroutine would have produced had it been called. (Notice the conditional tense indicating the counterfactual). He then inserts the answer in the IF clause at programming time. In so doing he must instantiate in his own mind and/or calculator the function of the Conscious_Subroutine for the particular case in which input = 27098217872180483080234850309823740127, If the single numeral input is replaced by a function with multiple numerical inputs, Maudlin trick could be expanded by using tables to store the output and instead of using an IF statement, Maudlin could use a CASE statement. But then, Maudlin would have to fill up the whole table with the answers that the Conscious_Subroutine would have produced. In the ultimate case you could conceive of a huge table that contains all the answers that the Conscious_Subroutine would ever answer to any question. This table however must be filled up. In the process of filling up the table you must instantiate all state of consciousness of the Conscious_Subroutine. Bruno, says: BTW I thought you did understand the physics/psychology (theology/computer-science/number-theory) reversal. What makes you changing your mind? (just interested). I did not change my mind. I just believe that Maudlin's reasoning is faulty. By calculating the output Maudlin inserts himself and possibly his calculator in the conscious process. To understand the insertion of Maudlin into the consciousness of The Conscious_Subroutine, you must agree that this consciousness is independent of time, space, substrate and level. This Maybe is the Moral of Maudlin's Machinations...? George Bruno Marchal wrote: Le 03-oct.-06, 21:33, George Levy a crit : Bruno, I looked on the web but could not find Maudlin's paper. Mmh... for those working in an institution affiliated to JSTOR, it is available here: http://www.jstor.org/view/0022362x/di973301/97p04115/0 I will search if some free version are available elsewhere, or put a pdf-version on my web page. So I just go by what you are saying. I still stand by the spirit of what I said but I admit to be misleading in stating that Maudlin himself is part of the machine. It is not Maudlin, but Maudlin's proxy or demon, the Klaras which is now parts of the machine. Maudlin used the same trick that Maxwell used. He used a the demon or proxy to perform his (dirty) work. It seems to me that if you trace the information flow you probably can detect that Maudlin is cheating: How are the protoolympia and the Klaras defined? Maudlin is cheating ? No more than a doctor who build an artificial brain by copying an original at some level. Remember we *assume* the comp hypothesis. To design his protoolympia and the Klaras he must start with the information about the machine and the task PI. If he changes task from PI to PIprime than he has to apply a different protoolympia and different Klaras, and he has to intervene in the process! Yes but only once. Changing PI to PIprime would be another thought experiment. I don't see the relevance. I know you got the paper now. It will help in this debate. Maudlin's argument is far from convincing. BTW I thought you did understand the physics/psychology (theology/computer-science/number-theory) reversal. What makes you changing your mind? (just interested). 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 everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Maudlin's Demon (Argument)
Oops. Read: IF (Input = 27098217872180483080234850309823740127) George George Levy wrote: Bruno, Stathis, Thank you Stathis for the summary. I do have the paper now and I will read it carefully. Based on Sathis summary I still believe that Maudlin is fallacious. A computer program equivalent to Maudlin's construction can be written as: IF (Input = -27098217872180483080234850309823740127) THEN (Output = 78972398473024802348523948518347109) ELSE Call Conscious_Subroutine ENDIF. If the input 27098217872180483080234850309823740127 is always given then the ELSE clause is never invoked. The point is that to write the above piece of code, Maudlin must go through the trouble of calculating perhaps on his hand calculator the answer 78972398473024802348523948518347109 that the Conscious_Subroutine would have produced had it been called. (Notice the conditional tense indicating the counterfactual). He then inserts the answer in the IF clause at programming time. In so doing he must instantiate in his own mind and/or calculator the function of the Conscious_Subroutine for the particular case in which input = 27098217872180483080234850309823740127, If the single numeral input is replaced by a function with multiple numerical inputs, Maudlin trick could be expanded by using tables to store the output and instead of using an IF statement, Maudlin could use a CASE statement. But then, Maudlin would have to fill up the whole table with the answers that the Conscious_Subroutine would have produced. In the ultimate case you could conceive of a huge table that contains all the answers that the Conscious_Subroutine would ever answer to any question. This table however must be filled up. In the process of filling up the table you must instantiate all state of consciousness of the Conscious_Subroutine. Bruno, says: BTW I thought you did understand the physics/psychology (theology/computer-science/number-theory) reversal. What makes you changing your mind? (just interested). I did not change my mind. I just believe that Maudlin's reasoning is faulty. By calculating the output Maudlin inserts himself and possibly his calculator in the conscious process. To understand the insertion of Maudlin into the consciousness of The Conscious_Subroutine, you must agree that this consciousness is independent of time, space, substrate and level. This Maybe is the Moral of Maudlin's Machinations...? George Bruno Marchal wrote: Le 03-oct.-06, 21:33, George Levy a crit : Bruno, I looked on the web but could not find Maudlin's paper. Mmh... for those working in an institution affiliated to JSTOR, it is available here: http://www.jstor.org/view/0022362x/di973301/97p04115/0 I will search if some free version are available elsewhere, or put a pdf-version on my web page. So I just go by what you are saying. I still stand by the spirit of what I said but I admit to be misleading in stating that Maudlin himself is part of the machine. It is not Maudlin, but Maudlin's proxy or demon, the Klaras which is now parts of the machine. Maudlin used the same trick that Maxwell used. He used a the demon or proxy to perform his (dirty) work. It seems to me that if you trace the information flow you probably can detect that Maudlin is cheating: How are the protoolympia and the Klaras defined? Maudlin is cheating ? No more than a doctor who build an artificial brain by copying an original at some level. Remember we *assume* the comp hypothesis. To design his protoolympia and the Klaras he must start with the information about the machine and the task PI. If he changes task from PI to PIprime than he has to apply a different protoolympia and different Klaras, and he has to intervene in the process! Yes but only once. Changing PI to PIprime would be another thought experiment. I don't see the relevance. I know you got the paper now. It will help in this debate. Maudlin's argument is far from convincing. BTW I thought you did understand the physics/psychology (theology/computer-science/number-theory) reversal. What makes you changing your mind? (just interested). 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 everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Maudlin's Demon (Argument)
If I can sumarise George's summary as this: In order to generate a recording, one must physically instantiate the conscious computation. Consciousness supervenes on this, presumably. Maudlin say aha - lets take the recording, and add to it an inert machine that handles the counterfactuals. This combined machine is computationally equivalent to the original. But since the new machine is physically equivalent to a recording, how could consciousness supervene on it. If we want to keep supervenience, there must be something noncomputational that means the first machine is conscious, and the second not. Marchal says consciousness supervenes on neither of the physical machines, but on the abstract computation, and there is only one consciousness involved (not two). Of course, this all applies to dreaming machines, or machines hooked up to recordings of the real world. This is where I concentrate my attack on the Maudlin argument (the Multiverse argument). Cheers -- *PS: A number of people ask me about the attachment to my email, which is of type application/pgp-signature. Don't worry, it is not a virus. It is an electronic signature, that may be used to verify this email came from me if you have PGP or GPG installed. Otherwise, you may safely ignore this attachment. A/Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Mathematics UNSW SYDNEY 2052 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Australiahttp://parallel.hpc.unsw.edu.au/rks International prefix +612, Interstate prefix 02 --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Maudlin's Demon (Argument)
Russell Standish wrote: Maudlin say aha - lets take the recording, and add to it an inert machine that handles the counterfactuals. This combined machine is computationally equivalent to the original. But since the new machine is physically equivalent to a recording, how could consciousness supervene on it. If we want to keep supervenience, there must be something noncomputational that means the first machine is conscious, and the second not. Marchal says consciousness supervenes on neither of the physical machines, but on the abstract computation, and there is only one consciousness involved (not two). Is there not a more general appeal to plausibility open to the non-supervenience argument? We are after all attempting to show the *consequences* of a thoroughgoing assumption of comp, not prove its truth. Under comp, a specific conscious state is taken as mapping to, and consistently co-varying with, some equally specific, but purely computationally defined, entity. The general problem is that any attempt to preserve such consistency of mapping through supervention on a logically and ontically prior 'physical' reality must fail, because under physicalism comp *must* reduce to an arbitrary gloss on the behaviour at an arbitrary level of arbitrarily many *physical* architectures or substrates. In other words, a 'computation' can be anything I say it is (cf. Hofstadter for some particularly egregious examples). So under physicalism, comp is condemned to be the ghost in the machine - merely a *metaphor*, entirely dependent on physical implementation for any 'reality': it's always the physics that does the work. Consequently, if we would rescue comp, we must perforce reverse the fundamental assumption, such that some set of logical/mathematical entities and operations must be logically and ontically prior. The project (e.g. Bruno's UDA) is then to show that some version of this generates both the consistent mapping from consciousness to computation, and a consistent 'physics' that is emergent from computational psychology. You pays your money and you takes your choice. David If I can sumarise George's summary as this: In order to generate a recording, one must physically instantiate the conscious computation. Consciousness supervenes on this, presumably. Maudlin say aha - lets take the recording, and add to it an inert machine that handles the counterfactuals. This combined machine is computationally equivalent to the original. But since the new machine is physically equivalent to a recording, how could consciousness supervene on it. If we want to keep supervenience, there must be something noncomputational that means the first machine is conscious, and the second not. Marchal says consciousness supervenes on neither of the physical machines, but on the abstract computation, and there is only one consciousness involved (not two). Of course, this all applies to dreaming machines, or machines hooked up to recordings of the real world. This is where I concentrate my attack on the Maudlin argument (the Multiverse argument). Cheers -- *PS: A number of people ask me about the attachment to my email, which is of type application/pgp-signature. Don't worry, it is not a virus. It is an electronic signature, that may be used to verify this email came from me if you have PGP or GPG installed. Otherwise, you may safely ignore this attachment. A/Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Mathematics UNSW SYDNEY 2052 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Australiahttp://parallel.hpc.unsw.edu.au/rks International prefix +612, Interstate prefix 02 --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Maudlin's Demon (Argument)
David Nyman wrote: Russell Standish wrote: Maudlin say aha - lets take the recording, and add to it an inert machine that handles the counterfactuals. This combined machine is computationally equivalent to the original. But since the new machine is physically equivalent to a recording, how could consciousness supervene on it. If we want to keep supervenience, there must be something noncomputational that means the first machine is conscious, and the second not. Marchal says consciousness supervenes on neither of the physical machines, but on the abstract computation, and there is only one consciousness involved (not two). Is there not a more general appeal to plausibility open to the non-supervenience argument? We are after all attempting to show the *consequences* of a thoroughgoing assumption of comp, not prove its truth. Under comp, a specific conscious state is taken as mapping to, and consistently co-varying with, some equally specific, but purely computationally defined, entity. The general problem is that any attempt to preserve such consistency of mapping through supervention on a logically and ontically prior 'physical' reality must fail, because under physicalism comp *must* reduce to an arbitrary gloss on the behaviour at an arbitrary level of arbitrarily many *physical* architectures or substrates. There is another possibility: that consciousness is relative to what it is conscious *of* and any computation that implements consciousness must also implement the whole world which the consciousness is conscious of. In that case there may be only one, unique physical universe that implements our consciousness. In other words, a 'computation' can be anything I say it is (cf. Hofstadter for some particularly egregious examples). This is switching computation in place of consciousness: relying on the idea that every computation is conscious? Brent Meeker --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
RE: Maudlin's Demon (Argument)
George, By similar reasoning, might you not also say that no computer or computer program could ever be conscious on its own because at some point it requires human intervention to produce it, even though once set up no more human intervention is required? Stathis Papaioannou --- Date: Wed, 4 Oct 2006 11:26:44 -0700 From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Maudlin's Demon (Argument) Bruno, Stathis, Thank you Stathis for the summary. I do have the paper now and I will read it carefully. Based on Sathis summary I still believe that Maudlin is fallacious. A computer program equivalent to Maudlin's construction can be written as: IF (Input = -27098217872180483080234850309823740127) THEN (Output = 78972398473024802348523948518347109) ELSE Call Conscious_Subroutine ENDIF. If the input 27098217872180483080234850309823740127 is always given then the ELSE clause is never invoked. The point is that to write the above piece of code, Maudlin must go through the trouble of calculating perhaps on his hand calculator the answer 78972398473024802348523948518347109 that the Conscious_Subroutine would have produced had it been called. (Notice the conditional tense indicating the counterfactual). He then inserts the answer in the IF clause at programming time. In so doing he must instantiate in his own mind and/or calculator the function of the Conscious_Subroutine for the particular case in which input = 27098217872180483080234850309823740127, If the single numeral input is replaced by a function with multiple numerical inputs, Maudlin trick could be expanded by using tables to store the output and instead of using an IF statement, Maudlin could use a CASE statement. But then, Maudlin would have to fill up the whole table with the answers that the Conscious_Subroutine would have produced. In the ultimate case you could conceive of a huge table that contains all the answers that the Conscious_Subroutine would ever answer to any question. This table however must be filled up. In the process of filling up the table you must instantiate all state of consciousness of the Conscious_Subroutine. Bruno, says: BTW I thought you did understand the physics/psychology (theology/computer-science/number-theory) reversal. What makes you changing your mind? (just interested). I did not change my mind. I just believe that Maudlin's reasoning is faulty. By calculating the output Maudlin inserts himself and possibly his calculator in the conscious process. To understand the insertion of Maudlin into the consciousness of The Conscious_Subroutine, you must agree that this consciousness is independent of time, space, substrate and level. This Maybe is the Moral of Maudlin's Machinations...? George Bruno Marchal wrote: Le 03-oct.-06, à 21:33, George Levy a écrit : Bruno, I looked on the web but could not find Maudlin's paper. Mmh... for those working in an institution affiliated to JSTOR, it is available here: http://www.jstor.org/view/0022362x/di973301/97p04115/0 I will search if some free version are available elsewhere, or put a pdf-version on my web page. So I just go by what you are saying. I still stand by the spirit of what I said but I admit to be misleading in stating that Maudlin himself is part of the machine. It is not Maudlin, but Maudlin's proxy or demon, the Klaras which is now parts of the machine. Maudlin used the same trick that Maxwell used. He used a the demon or proxy to perform his (dirty) work. It seems to me that if you trace the information flow you probably can detect that Maudlin is cheating: How are the protoolympia and the Klaras defined? Maudlin is cheating ? No more than a doctor who build an artificial brain by copying an original at some level. Remember we *assume* the comp hypothesis. To design his protoolympia and the Klaras he must start with the information about the machine and the task PI. If he changes task from PI to PIprime than he has to apply a different protoolympia and different Klaras, and he has to intervene in the process! Yes but only once. Changing PI to PIprime would be another thought experiment. I don't see the relevance. I know you got the paper now. It will help in this debate. Maudlin's argument is far from convincing. BTW I thought you did understand the physics/psychology (theology/computer-science/number-theory) reversal. What makes you changing your mind? (just interested). Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ _ Be one of the first to try Windows Live Mail. http://ideas.live.com/programpage.aspx?versionId=5d21c51a-b161-4314-9b0e-4911fb2b2e6d --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group
Re: Maudlin's Demon (Argument)
List members I scanned Maudlin's paper. Thank you Russell. As I suspected I found a few questionable passages: Page417: line 14: "So the spatial sequence of the troughs need not reflect their 'computational sequence'. We may so contrive that any sequence of address lie next to each other spatially." Page 418 line 5: "The first step in our construction is to rearrange Klara's tape so that address T[0] to T[N] lie spatially in sequence, T[0] next to T[1] next to T[2], etc... How does Maudlin know how to arrange the order of the tape locations? He must run his task Pi in his head or on a calculator. Maudlin's reaches a quasi religious conclusion when he states: "Olympia has shown us a least that some other level beside the computational must be sought. But until we have found that level and until we have explicated the relationship between it and the computational structure, the belief that ...of pure computationalism will ever lead to the creation of artificial minds or the the understanding of natural ones, remains only a pious hope." Let me try to summarize: Maudlin is wrong in concluding that there must be something non-computational necessary for consciouness. Maudlin himself was the unwitting missing consciousness piece inserted in his machine at programming time i.e., the machine's consciouness spanned execution time and programming time. He himself was the unwitting missing piece when he design his tape. The correct conclusion IMHO is that consciousness is independent of time, space, substrate and level and in fact can span all of these just as Maudlin partially demonstrated - but you still need an implementation -- so what is left? Like the Cheshire cat, nothing except the software itself: Consistent logical links operating in a bootstrapping reflexive emergent manner. Bruno is right in applying math/logic to solve the consciousness/physical world (Mind/Body) riddle. Physics can be derived from machine psychology. George Russell Standish wrote: If I can sumarise George's summary as this: In order to generate a recording, one must physically instantiate the conscious computation. Consciousness supervenes on this, presumably. Maudlin say aha - lets take the recording, and add to it an inert machine that handles the counterfactuals. This combined machine is computationally equivalent to the original. But since the new machine is physically equivalent to a recording, how could consciousness supervene on it. If we want to keep supervenience, there must be something noncomputational that means the first machine is conscious, and the second not. Marchal says consciousness supervenes on neither of the physical machines, but on the abstract computation, and there is only one consciousness involved (not two). Of course, this all applies to dreaming machines, or machines hooked up to recordings of the real world. This is where I concentrate my attack on the Maudlin argument (the Multiverse argument). Cheers --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
RE: Maudlin's Demon (Argument)
Brent Meeker writes: David Nyman wrote: Russell Standish wrote: Maudlin say aha - lets take the recording, and add to it an inert machine that handles the counterfactuals. This combined machine is computationally equivalent to the original. But since the new machine is physically equivalent to a recording, how could consciousness supervene on it. If we want to keep supervenience, there must be something noncomputational that means the first machine is conscious, and the second not. Marchal says consciousness supervenes on neither of the physical machines, but on the abstract computation, and there is only one consciousness involved (not two). Is there not a more general appeal to plausibility open to the non-supervenience argument? We are after all attempting to show the *consequences* of a thoroughgoing assumption of comp, not prove its truth. Under comp, a specific conscious state is taken as mapping to, and consistently co-varying with, some equally specific, but purely computationally defined, entity. The general problem is that any attempt to preserve such consistency of mapping through supervention on a logically and ontically prior 'physical' reality must fail, because under physicalism comp *must* reduce to an arbitrary gloss on the behaviour at an arbitrary level of arbitrarily many *physical* architectures or substrates. There is another possibility: that consciousness is relative to what it is conscious *of* and any computation that implements consciousness must also implement the whole world which the consciousness is conscious of. In that case there may be only one, unique physical universe that implements our consciousness. Do you believe it is possible to copy a particular consciousness by emulating it, along with sham inputs (i.e. in virtual reality), on a general purpose computer? Or do you believe a coal-shovelling robot could only have the coal-shovelling experience by actually shovelling coal? Stathis Papaioannou _ Be one of the first to try Windows Live Mail. http://ideas.live.com/programpage.aspx?versionId=5d21c51a-b161-4314-9b0e-4911fb2b2e6d --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Maudlin's Demon (Argument)
Stathis Papaioannou wrote: Brent Meeker writes: David Nyman wrote: Russell Standish wrote: Maudlin say aha - lets take the recording, and add to it an inert machine that handles the counterfactuals. This combined machine is computationally equivalent to the original. But since the new machine is physically equivalent to a recording, how could consciousness supervene on it. If we want to keep supervenience, there must be something noncomputational that means the first machine is conscious, and the second not. Marchal says consciousness supervenes on neither of the physical machines, but on the abstract computation, and there is only one consciousness involved (not two). Is there not a more general appeal to plausibility open to the non-supervenience argument? We are after all attempting to show the *consequences* of a thoroughgoing assumption of comp, not prove its truth. Under comp, a specific conscious state is taken as mapping to, and consistently co-varying with, some equally specific, but purely computationally defined, entity. The general problem is that any attempt to preserve such consistency of mapping through supervention on a logically and ontically prior 'physical' reality must fail, because under physicalism comp *must* reduce to an arbitrary gloss on the behaviour at an arbitrary level of arbitrarily many *physical* architectures or substrates. There is another possibility: that consciousness is relative to what it is conscious *of* and any computation that implements consciousness must also implement the whole world which the consciousness is conscious of. In that case there may be only one, unique physical universe that implements our consciousness. Do you believe it is possible to copy a particular consciousness by emulating it, along with sham inputs (i.e. in virtual reality), on a general purpose computer? That would be my present guess. Or do you believe a coal-shovelling robot could only have the coal-shovelling experience by actually shovelling coal? Probably not. But from a QM viewpoint the robot and the coal are inevitably entangled with the environment (i.e. the rest of the universe); so I don't consider it a knock-down argument. Brent Meeker --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
