On 8/11/2014 4:03 PM, LizR wrote:
I have never got this idea of "counterfactual correctness". It seems to be that the
argument goes ...
Assume computational process A is conscious
Take process B, which replays A - B passes through the same machine states as A, but it
doesn't work them out, it's driven by a recording of A - B isn't conscious because it
isn't counterfactually correct.
I can't see how this works. (Except insofar as if we assume consciousness doesn't
supervene on material processes, then neither A nor B is conscious, they are just
somehow attached to conscious experiences generated elsewhere, maybe by a UD.)
It doesn't work, because it ignores the fact that consciousness is about something. It
can only exist in the context of thoughts (machine states and processes) referring to a
"world"; being part of a representational and predictive model. Without the
counterfactuals, it's just a sequence of states and not a model of anything. But in order
that it be a model it must interact or have interacted in the past in order that the model
be causally connected to the world. It is this connection that gives meaning to the
model. Because Bruno is a logician he tends to think of consciousness as performing
deductive proofs, executing a proof in the sense that every computer program is a proof.
He models belief as proof. But this overlooks where the meaning of the program comes
from. People that want to deny computers can be conscious point out that the meaning
comes from the programmer. But it doesn't have to. If the computer has goals and can
learn and act within the world then its internal modeling and decision processes get
meaning through their potential for actions.
This is why I don't agree with the conclusion drawn from step 8. I think the requirement
to counterfactually correct implies that a whole world, a physics, needs to be simulated
too, or else the Movie Graph or Klara need to be able to interact with the world to supply
the meaning to their program. But if the Movie Graph computer is a counterfactually
correct simulation of a person within a simulated world, there's no longer a "reversal".
Simulated consciousness exists in simulated worlds - dog bites man.
Brent
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