On Tue, Oct 6, 2015 Brent Meeker <meeke...@verizon.net> wrote:
> ​>> ​
> Brains are not like ideal von Neumann computers or Turing machines that
> have "brain states" corresponding to "mental states". If you simulated a
> brain using a computer you would find that an enormous number of "brain
> states" were required to instantiate a single conscious thought
​You're talking about parallel processing, but a Turing Machine can
simulate a parallel computer too. The only advantage that parallel
computers have is that they're faster for most problems, but without
external stimulus subjectively you would have no way of knowing if your
mind was working fast or slow, or even if it had stopped completely for a
billion years and then restarted.
John K Clark
​
>
> On 10/6/2015 1:18 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
>
>> On 6 Oct 2015, at 2:45 PM, Brent Meeker <meeke...@verizon.net> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On 10/5/2015 6:24 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
>>>>
>>>> On 6 Oct 2015, at 11:29 AM, Brent Meeker <meeke...@verizon.net> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> On 10/5/2015 5:14 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> From this comment it seems that you have an odd idea of how a person
>>>>>> survives from moment to moment, as if they have a soul that needs to be
>>>>>> transferred from one body to the other. That isn't how it works. If A1
>>>>>> survives as a later entity A2, it is necessary and sufficient that A1 and
>>>>>> A2 have certain physical and psychological properties. No spark or soul
>>>>>> needs to jump from A1 to A2, and they neither need to have any matter in
>>>>>> common nor do they need to have any physical continuity, since these
>>>>>> factors have no effect on experience.
>>>>>>
>>>>> I disagree with that last. It's commonly assumed, because with shut
>>>>> our eyes and imagine scenes and we can compose dialog in our heads; but I
>>>>> think it is a mistake to think these can happen independent of some
>>>>> underlying physics - even if it's not "primitive" physics (whatever that
>>>>> is) which Bruno dismisses.
>>>>>
>>>> But lack of physical continuity will not necessarily make a subjective
>>>> difference, even if physics is needed to instantiate consciousness.
>>>>
>>> Not necessarily if it is at a very low level, e.g. atoms. But if it's
>>> something noticeable, some difference in hormone levels, ... it will make a
>>> difference in thoughts. If the thought sequence can different with the
>>> things happening at the physical level of say neurons then it implies that
>>> supervenience is false and the mental and physical can go their own way
>>> (which is what we call "delusional").
>>>
>> I'm not sure I understand what you are getting at. I meant that if the
>> normal sequence of brain states is s1-s2-s3 with corresponding mental
>> states m1-m2-m3 and s2 is omitted, there is nothing in m3 to give any
>> indication of the discontinuity. Of course, normally s2 is necessary in
>> order to generate s1, but that doesn't change the argument.
>>
>
> But I think that's wrong. Brains are not like ideal von Neumann computers
> or Turing machines that have "brain states" corresponding to "mental
> states". If you simulated a brain using a computer you would find that an
> enormous number of "brain states" were required to instantiate a single
> conscious thought and furthermore the brains states necessary for one
> thought overlapped with those necessary for the next thought. So this
> overlap at the low level is part of the physical continuity needed for
> consciousness. The fact that the physics can be simulated by discrete
> computation doesn't imply that the conscious states are discrete.
>
> Brent
>
>
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