2010/1/4 Brent Meeker <meeke...@dslextreme.com>: > I think you give an excellent explication of the problem, Stathis. However, > one thing about it that still worries me is the role of time. You say the > mapping need not be consistent even moment to moment, and yet the mapping is > a timeless Platonic object. To be a timeless object the the moments need > some timeless representation. In Bruno's theory time arises from the > computational sequence. But in the mapping, time is just a relation of > similarity (closest continuation) of states. So three states which when > ordered by closest continuation are XYZ may have been computed in the order > XZY. So I find myself seeing the hardwareless computer as a reductio > against consciousness=computation thesis and support for Peter's view that > ur-stuff and contingency are fundamental.
It always seemed to me obvious that I would experience time normally if the computations or other physical processes generating my stream of consciousness were chopped up and played out of sequence, backwards, simultaneously or whatever. It could be happening right now: I have no way to know if the seconds of my life are running sequentially or all in parallel during a single second of real time. The two problems that many seem to have with this idea is a feeling that there needs to be some sort of mechanism for singling out the time slice that is the "now", and a feeling that the time slices lack a causal glue to connect them together. But maybe I'm missing something, because these objections never seemed to me to be problems. -- Stathis Papaioannou -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
