On 8/14/2014 5:09 PM, LizR wrote:
On 15 August 2014 09:29, meekerdb <meeke...@verizon.net <mailto:meeke...@verizon.net>>
wrote:
On 8/14/2014 11:40 AM, Platonist Guitar Cowboy wrote:
Then it'd be no problem for you guys to clearly spell out what that
environment is.
Yes, that's a problem. The MGA considers a computational sequence that
produces
some conscious thought. I think that in order for the computational
sequence to
have meaning it must refer to some context in which decision or action is possible.
That's what makes it about something and not just a sequence of events. I initially
thought of it in terms of the extra states that had to be available for
counterfactual correctness in response to an external environment, e.g.
seeing
something, having a K_40 atom decay in your brain. But now I've think the
necessity
of reference is different than counterfactual correctness. For example if
you had a
recording of the computations of an autonomous Mars Rover they wouldn't
really
constitute a computation because the recording would not have the
possibility of
branching in response to inputs. And the inputs wouldn't necessarily be
external,
at a different state of the Rover's learning the same sequence might have
triggered
a different association from memory. So the referents are not necessarily
just
external, they include all of memory as well.
Given that comp assumes consciousness supervenes on classical computation, it's still
hard for me to imagine what the difference is that counterfactuals or meaning supply.
That is, a classical computation (as opposed to a quantum one...perhaps???) is a
well-defined set of steps, and if you re-run them in the MGA they're identical. There
may be no possibility of reacting differently to different inputs, but I can't see what
difference - i.e. what real, physical, engineering (etc) type difference that makes. If
consciousness is digitally emulable, then it can be replayed, and whatever
"counterfactuals" and "meanings" that the consciousness may attach to its internal
states or (replayed) inputs will be repeated.
So in a nutshell I can't see how, assuming consciousness supervenes on physical
computation, that "being about something" or having "meaning" or "needing counterfactual
correctness" -- or needing a real environment, for that matter, as opposed to
identically repeated inputs -- can make any difference to whether the UTM in question is
conscious. Because a system that interacts with an environment and one that replays that
interaction exactly are, or can in theory be made, physically identical.
What am I missing?
If counterfactual correctness and causal environmental reference are not needed for
consciousness then consciousness will be instantiated by any sequence of states, including
just repetitions of the same state, since with a certain mapping any sequence "I seek a
chair." can be encoded as any other sequence "00000000000000" as a recording. Then it
seems the conclusion would be dualism - conscious is not related to either physics or
computation. Yet we know that consciousness can be changed by physics (and chemistry). So
we reached an absurdity, a reductio. The question is, where did the chain of inference go
wrong? It could be that losing counterfactual correctness makes the sequence of states
not a computation and we need to have CC if we're going to identify consciousness with
computation. Another possibility is that we need the causal reference to give meaning to
the sequence in order that it instantiate consciousness. For example if we have an
intelligent, conscious autopilot land an airplane; then when we play it back we won't have
CC but it will still have reference to a world in which there was interaction and decision
- in the past - and that allows it to instantiate consciousness without being absurd.
Personally I think consciousness needs both CC and reference.
Brent
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