Peter Jones writes (quoting SP): > > > > I'm not sure how the multiverse comes into the discussion, but you have > > > > made the point several times that a computation depends on an observer > > > > > > > > > No, I haven't! I have tried ot follow through the consequences of > > > assuming it must. > > > It seems to me that some sort of absurdity or contradiction ensues. > > > > OK. This has been a long and complicated thread. > > > > > > for its meaning. I agree, but *if* computations can be conscious > > > > (remember, > > > > this is an assumption) then in that special case an external observer > > > > is not > > > > needed. > > > > > > Why not ? (Well, I would be quite happy that a conscious > > > computation would have some inherent structural property -- > > > I want to foind out why *you* would think it doesn't). > > > > I think it goes against standard computationalism if you say that a > > conscious > > computation has some inherent structural property.
I should have said, that the *hardware* has some special structural property goes against computationalism. It is difficult to pin down the "structure" of a computation without reference to a programming language or hardware. The idea is that the same computation can look completely different on different computers, the corollary of which is that any computer (or physical process) may be implementing any computation, we just might not know about it. It is legitimate to say that only particular computers (eg. brains, or PC's) using particular languages arev actually implementing conscious computations, but that is not standard computationalism. Statthis 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 -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
