meekerdb wrote:
On 3/26/2015 11:05 PM, Bruce Kellett wrote:
I don't think even this follows. A computation is a computation -- it
gives a definite result for definite inputs. It still counts as a
computation even if the same program running on different inputs would
give different results.
? Giving different results on different input is what counterfactual
correctness implies. A recording is not counterfactually correct
because it gives the same output no matter what the input (effectively
there is no input). If you don't require counterfactual correctness,
i.e. computing the correct answer for different inputs, then a look-up
table with just one entry qualifies as a computation.
I understand counterfactual correctness, but I think the concept is
misapplied -- even to the extent of making a category error.
Counterfactual correctness can be ascribed to a computer/calculator but
not to a calculation. A calculator would not be counterfactually correct
if it gave the same output for every input, but a calculation is a
calculation! It is a single thing -- one output from one input. If you
change the input, in general you would get different output. But then
that would be different calculation. It is a category error to ask for
counterfactual correctness from an individual calculation.
If I do a calculation with pencil and paper, writing out the steps of my
calculation, that is still a calculation even after I have finished. It
is still the same calculation 10 years later (if the paper is intact).
IIt is not counterfactually correct because I do different calculations
on different pieces of paper, leaving the original recoded calculation
intact. But it is still a calculation -- what else would you call it?
I think this basic confusion between the calculator and the calculation
renders the MGA toothless. It does not establish that the recording
cannot be conscious. The recording is as much a calculation as the
original. If you degrade the film/recording, then you finally lose
consciousness, but that is beside the point. It is just like rubbing out
or burning your original paper calculation. It is only if you insist
that your computing mechanism is counterfactually correct that you can
say that a recording cannot reconstitute consciousness, but the
computing mechanism is not the calculation that corresponds to
consciousness.
Bruce
Brent
I have a lot of trouble seeing that counterfactual correctness is
actually the distinction Bruno needs to make. He wants to distinguish
the active simulation from the passive rerun of the same sequence of
states. Why not just make this distinction, simpliciter?
I am with Liz -- where is the actual contradiction with assuming
physical supervenience? That does not rule out the possibility of
supervenience on an effective simulation -- the simulation is run on a
physical computer, after all!
Bruce
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