On 8/11/2014 7:29 PM, LizR wrote:
On 12 August 2014 12:48, meekerdb <meeke...@verizon.net <mailto:meeke...@verizon.net>>
wrote:
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.
What differentiates A and B, given that they use the same machine states? How can A be
more about something than B? Or to put it another way, what is the "meaning" that makes
A conscious, but not B?
A makes decisions in response to the world. Although, ex hypothesi, the world is
repeating its inputs and A is repeating his decisions. Note that this assumes QM doesn't
apply at the computational level of A. In the argument we're asked to consider a dream so
that we're led to overlook the fact that the meaning of A's internal processes actually
derive from A's interaction with a world. Imagine A as being born and living in a sensory
deprivation tank - will A be conscious? I think not. But in Bruno's and Maudlin's
thought experiments A might be, A could be aware of Peano's axioms and could prove all
provable theorems plus Godel's incompleteness.
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.
Are you assuming that the world with which the MG interacts it itself digitally
emulable? If so, doesn't Bruno's argument go through for the whole emulated world, if
not for a subcomponent of it ("Klara") ? ISTM you're saying that a conscious being has
to interact with a world - which may be true (people go mad in sensory isolation
eventually). But if the world is emulable then the MGA can be applied to it as a whole.
Right.
Or at least I remember Bruno saying that the substitution level and region to be
emulated weren't important to the argument, as long as there is some level and region in
which it holds. I'm sure he said that it might involve emulating the world, or a chunk
of the universe, but that the argument still goes through.
Or did I misremember that, or did he say that, but there's a flaw in his
argument?
It's not exactly a flaw. He always says, sure just make the simulation more
comprehensive, include more of the environment, even the whole universe. Which is OK, but
then when you think about the reversal of physics and psychology you see that it is the
physics here, in the non-simulated world, which has been replaced by the psychology PLUS
physics in the simulated world. If I say I can replace you with a simulation - I'll
probably be greeted with skepticism. But if I say I can replace you with a simulation of
you in a simulation of the world - well then it's not so clear what I mean or how hard it
will be.
Brent
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