Bruno Marchal wrote:
>
> On 14 Jan 2009, at 18:40, Brent Meeker wrote:
>
>> Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
>>> 2009/1/14 Brent Meeker <meeke...@dslextreme.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> However a Turing machine is not just a set of states, it also
>>>> requires a
>>>> set of transition rules. So in the same abstract way that the
>>>> integers
>>>> are ordered by "succession" the computational states of a Turing
>>>> machine
>>>> are ordered. Whether just abstract rules, without implementation,
>>>> are
>>>> sufficient isn't clear to me.
>>> In an actual physical computer the transition rules are represented
>>> by
>>> the causal links between the states, so that a particular input will
>>> reliably give rise to a particular output. But I return to my
>>> question
>>> about what would happen if there were a discontinuity in a sequence
>>> of
>>> states, so that s1 to s10 on m1 are causally linked, s11 to s20 on m2
>>> are causally linked, but there is no link between m1 and m2, i.e. m2
>>> just happens to start in s11 accidentally. Assuming that s1 to s20
>>> occurring in a single machine results is a few moments of
>>> consciousness (which is to say, assuming that computationalism is
>>> true), what would happen if the sequence is broken in the way just
>>> described?
>> I suspect something is lost. You are thinking of the states as
>> abstract steps
>> in a computer program. But a computer program requires a computer
>> to run
>
>
> This is true, but the word "run" is ambiguous. It could be a
> mathematical run.
But isn't that the crux of the question? Mathematics is a set of logical
relations - which have no temporal component. So a "mathematical run" can only
be analogous to a physical run. So what is it in a mathematical run that makes
it a "run" instead of just a timeless Platonic object?
>It is digital some we can use the natural numbers
> and the successor relation for the first order time of the UD run.
But if we look at the program for a UD the successor relation is not
implemented. When it is run on a computer, the physics of the computer
provides
the succession.
> Independent subcomputations manage their own "time". Physical time is
> something else: it emerges in the plural first person perspective.
>
> From the point of view of the machine it makes no difference (it is
> the MGA point).
>
>
>
>
>> and
>> the computer implements distributed spatiotemporal links.
>
>
> This of course is not proved, but admittedly required for a materialist.
It is empirically verified. Of course nothing is ever "proved" outside a
formal
axiomatic system.
> (I guess you were saying: "the computer is implemented by
> spatiotemporal links")
That's looking at the computer as an abstract "machine" which gets implemented
in physics. I was looking at the computation as an abstract process which gets
implemented by the (physical) computer.
>
>
>
>
>> In general you cannot
>> take even a digitial computer and freeze it in a instant of time,
>> call that a
>> state, and restart it without any effects.
>
>
> Apparently, homeotherm animals can be frozen and heated back and still
> keep even their short term memory, if I remember correctly (!).
> Experiences with rats suggest this is the case, according to Michel
> Jouvert (the discoverer of REM sleep).
>
> But what I really want to say is this. Even if you were true, or
> Jouvet false, actually even if our relevant brain state was a quantum
> state, which when unknown are not duplicable, it would change nothing.
> I suppose some high level in UDA(1...6) only for making the reasoning
> more easy. At step seven, all what matters is that there is a level
> were you are in principle digitally describable, be it the galaxy .
> The reason is that if such a level exist then the UD will access that
> state, infinitely often, in many subcomputations, and
> subsubcomputations.
> And this gives the fundamental first person (plural) indeterminacy:
> the fact that each computation, from the 1-pov, more exactly from the
> obligatory (by UDA('1...6)) 3-pov on the 1-pov, bifurcate or
> differentiate into 2^aleph_zero histories in the universal deployment.
>
>
>
>
>> Switches are in intermediate states,
>> EM waves are propagating, electrons are diffusing - it is not a
>> static thing
>> like a step in a program.
>
>
> I think comp explains the appearance of continua, and the relative
> correctness of that view. But that "thing", the concrete computer, is
> a local approximation of the true thing (with the comp assumption). If
> its representation abilities are locally enough stable relatively to
> you, it will make possible for the "true thing" to manifest itself
> relatively to your histories. The "true" thing being the person, not
> its relative (to you) envelop or description.
>
>
>
>
>>
>> In terms of Bruno's teleporter, one might say yes accepting that
>> there would be
>> a one-time gap in consciousness (ever had a concussion?), but one
>> would probably
>> hesitate if the there was to be a gap every 10ms.
>
>
> From the ultimate third point of view, there are no gap, or there are
> gaps everywhere, that could depend on the topology or topologies you
> will extract from the numbers.
In order to teleport me, my state must be determined. That means the values of
physical variables at disparate spacetime points (in my head or my galaxy
or...), but relativity makes it impossible to determine the state over an
extended region until some later time on the order of d/c where d is the size
of
the region. So in reproducing me in the teleporter this increment of time will
not be reproduced - I will experience a gap in consciousness, or a failure to
remember a certain interval just before the teleportation. It's comparable to
the time it would take a computer to store an image of it's state.
Brent
>Strictly speaking there are only the
> natural numbers and their many arithmetical relations. Now some
> arithmetical relation define or represent universal computation(s),
> including all finite portions of the universal deployment.
>
> From the first point of view, there is no gap. For the same reason
> that the Everett observer, when measuring, with an {UP,DOWN}-measuring
> apparatus a particle in the state UP+DOWN, will not feel the split or
> feel self-superposed. The first person experience is determined by the
> possible relations you have with your most probable universal history,
> among already 2^aleph_zero very similar universal histories. Those are
> just arithmetical relations (assuming ...). From the first person
> point of view, your concern is not limited to the finite portions of
> the universal deployment: you are directly concerned by the infinite
> deployment, in its entirety, and this just because you cannot be aware
> (UDA 4) of the more and more monumental gaps generated by the UD, or
> existing in UD* (the universal deployment).
>
> I could speculate on the fact (not needed in the UDA) that we can
> never be unconscious. In the morning, when we wake up, we can have the
> feeling that we have been unconscious, but that feeling could be a
> mind construct, a programmed amnesia on the conscious activity of the
> night. *the* "unconscious" seen as what you are not conscious *of*,
> could still make sense, but it could be that a person is never
> unconscious: gaps would be false memories (having some role). Although
> always conscious, the person could and usually is unconscious *of*
> many things, of course, like a person can forget things. This leads to
> the fusion (of person and/or histories) topic. Differentiation and
> Dedifferentiation.
>
> Bruno
> http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
>
>
>
>
> >
>
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