On Friday, September 4, 2015 at 1:35:50 AM UTC+10, Bruno Marchal wrote: > > > On 02 Sep 2015, at 22:48, meekerdb wrote: > > On 9/2/2015 8:25 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: > > So now you agree with me that there are different kinds and degrees of > consciousness; that it is not just a binary attribute of an axiom + > inference system. > > > ? > > Either you are conscious, or you are not. > > > But is a roundworm either conscious or not? an amoeba? > > > I don't know, but i think they are. Even bacteria, and perhaps even some > viruses, but on a different time scale than us. > > > > If they can be conscious, but not self-conscious then there are two kinds > of "being conscious". > > > Yes, at least two kinds, but each arithmetical hypostases having either > "<>t" or "& p" describes a type of consciousness, I would say. > And they all differentiate on the infinitely many version of "[]A", be it > the "[]" predicate of PA, ZF, an amoeba or you and me ... > > > So if there are different kinds of consciousness then a being with more > kinds is more conscious. It seems that your dictum, "Your either conscious > or not." is being diluted away to mere slogan. > > > > There are basically two levels, without criterion of decidability, but > with simple operational definition: > > 1) something is conscious if it is torturable, and arguably ethically > wrong of doing so. I think all invertebrates are already at that level, and > in arithmetic that might correspond to the sigma_1 complete (Turing > universality). Robinson Arithmetic, the universal dovetailer, are at that > level. >
How does one torture arithmetic? Hold on, I was probably guilty of that in school... Oh the guilt! But seriously, why torturable as the criteria? Isn't a conscious being incapable of pain perfectly conceivable? (Like the woman I heard of recently who is incapable of fear because her amygdala is calcified. And there are people who can't feel physical pain. So take away fear and pain and torture becomes rather difficult to execute.) > > 2) something is self-conscious if it is Löbian, basically he is aware of > its unnameable name. PA, ZF, are "at that level", like all their sound > recursively enumerable extensions. At that level, the entity is able to > ascribe consciousness to another, and can get the the moral understanding > of good and wrong (with or without a forbidden fruit). > > But the content of the consciousness can be extremely variable, and then > there are many different types of consciousness states. By incompleteness, > machine's psychology is transfinitely rich. The first person self is not a > machine from the machine first person perspective. Machines are naturally > non computationalist, and the origin of consciousness is plausibly more on > the side of the truth than on the representation. > > Bruno > > > > > > > Brent > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Everything List" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to everything-li...@googlegroups.com <javascript:>. > To post to this group, send email to everyth...@googlegroups.com > <javascript:>. > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > > > http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ > > > > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
