On 10/8/2015 10:14 AM, John Clark wrote:
On Tue, Oct 6, 2015 Brent Meeker <meeke...@verizon.net
<mailto: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,
No I'm not.
Brent
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 <mailto: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
<mailto: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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