RE: computationalism and supervenience
Brent Meeker writes: I don't have a clear idea in my mind of disembodied computation except in rather simple cases, like numbers and arithmetic. The number 5 exists as a Platonic ideal, and it can also be implemented so we can interact with it, as when there is a collection of 5 oranges, or 3 oranges and 2 apples, or 3 pairs of oranges and 2 triplets of apples, and so on, in infinite variety. The difficulty is that if we say that 3+2=5 as exemplified by 3 oranges and 2 apples is conscious, then should we also say that the pairs+triplets of fruit are also conscious? If so, where do we draw the line? I'm not sure I understand your example. Are you saying that by simply existing, two apples and 3 oranges compute 2+3=5? If so I would disagree. I would say it is our comprehending them as individual objects and also as a set that is the computation. Just hanging there on the trees they may be computing apple hanging on a tree, apple hanging on a tree,... but they're not computing 2+3=5. What about my example in an earlier post of beads on an abacus? You can slide 2 beads to the left, then another 3 beads to the left, and count a total of 5 beads; or 2 pairs of beads and 3 pairs of beads and count a total of 5 pairs of beads, or any other variation. Perhaps it seems a silly example when discussing consciousness, but the most elaborate (and putatively conscious) computation can be reduced to a complex bead-sliding exercise. And if sliding beads computes 2+3=5, why not if 2 birds and then 3 birds happen to land on a tree, or a flock of birds of which 2 are red lands on one tree and another flock of birds of which 3 are red lands on an adjacent tree? It is true that these birds and beads are not of much consequence computationally unless someone is there to observe them and interpret them, but what about the computer that is conscious chug-chugging away all on its own? That is what I mean when I say that any computation can map onto any physical system. But as you've noted before the computation is almost all in the mapping. And not just in the map, but in the application of the map - which is something we do. That action can't be abstracted away. You can't just say there's a physical system and there's a manual that would map it into some computation and stop there as though the computation has been done. The mapping, an action, still needs to be performed. What if the computer is built according to some ridiculously complex plan, plugged in, then all the engineers, manuals, etc. disappear. If it was conscious to begin with, does it suddenly cease being conscious because no-one is able to understand it? It could have been designed according to the radioactive decay patterns of a sacred stone, in which case without the documentation, its internal states might appear completely random. With the documentation, it may be possible to understand what it is doing or even interact with it, and you have said previously that it is the potential for interaction that allows it to be conscious, but does that mean it gradually becomes less conscious as pages of the manual are ripped out one by one and destroyed, even though the computer itself does not change its activity as a result? The physical structure and activity of computer A implementing program a may be completely different to that of computer B implementing program b, but program b may be an emulation of program a, which should make the two machines functionally equivalent and, under computationalism, equivalently conscious. I don't see any problem with supposing that A and B are equally conscious (or unconscious). But there is a mapping under which any machine B is emulating a machine A. Figuring out this mapping does not change the physical activity of either A or B. You can argue that therefore the physical activity of A or B is irrelevant and consciousness is implemented non-corporeally by virtue of its existence as a Platonic object; or you can argue that this is clearly nonsense and consciousness is implemented as a result of some special physical property of a particular machine. Stathis Papaioannou _ Be one of the first to try Windows Live Mail. http://ideas.live.com/programpage.aspx?versionId=5d21c51a-b161-4314-9b0e-4911fb2b2e6d --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Russell's book
On Wed, Sep 13, 2006 at 02:56:30PM -, David Nyman wrote: Russell Standish wrote: If you can demonstrate this as a theorem, or even as a moderately convincing argument why this should be so, I'd be most grateful for a presentation. I'm all for eliminating unnecessary hypotheses. 'Fraid I don't have a theorem! However, as to 'moderately convincing arguments', I think the problem with thinking coherently about temporal experience seems to be with mentally flip-flopping between structural and implicitly dynamic mental models of 'time'. I had an exchange with Barbour about this because I was convinced that he just introduced 'time' back into his static Platonia by what I called 'sleight of intuition' - i.e. the implicit temporality of our language. He didn't disagree, but just felt he wanted to de-emphasise this aspect within his project of taking the static function maximally seriously. However, I'm not so certain about the intuition now. It seems plausible that the content of 1st-person experience is represented structurally within time capsules - including those aspects that would appear as 'in relation to' the content of other capsules. This by itself would yield a 'picture' of time from the pov of any capsule (i.e. 'time' as information, and particularly as defined by information 'horizons') if only we could account for the experience of dynamism. Here I'm much less clear, but I have a sort of 'intuition pump'. It seems to me that we must consider who or what is the 'experiencer'. For dynamism one needs contrast, and such contrast is to be found between the 0-person 'pov' of the multiverse and individual 1st-person capsules. So if the multiverse is the experiencer, the dynamism of time may emerge simply from the global/ local contrast of its 0-person/ 1st-person povs. Clear as mud. David If you note in sect. 9.2 of my book, I am quite clear that time must emerge from a timeless underlying reality somehow - whether by Barbour's time capsules, or by some completely different mechanism, I don't think is all that pertinent. That the experience of time is necessarily experienced by all conscious points of view is to my knowledge not even addressed by other philosophers. Even Bruno seems to skirt the issue, although there is an appearance of temporality with the S4Grz logic. So I've simply made a conjecture that experience of time is necessary for consciousness, and tried to dilute the strength of that conjecture as far as possible. Hopefully some bright spark will either prove the conjecture (in some form), or even more interestingly disprove it. But I won't hold my breath. Cheers -- *PS: A number of people ask me about the attachment to my email, which is of type application/pgp-signature. Don't worry, it is not a virus. It is an electronic signature, that may be used to verify this email came from me if you have PGP or GPG installed. Otherwise, you may safely ignore this attachment. A/Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Mathematics UNSW SYDNEY 2052 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Australiahttp://parallel.hpc.unsw.edu.au/rks International prefix +612, Interstate prefix 02 --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
RE: Russell's book
Johnathan Corgan writes: David Nyman wrote: [re: QTI] This has obvious implications for retirement planning in general and avoidance of the more egregious cul-de-sac situations. On the other hand, short of outright lunacy vis-a-vis personal safety, it also seems to imply that from the 1st-person pov we are likely to come through (albeit possibly in less-than-perfect shape) even apparently minimally survivable situations. This struck me particularly forcibly while watching the 9/11 re-runs on TV last night. It's the cul-de-sac situations that interest me. Are there truly any? Are there moments of consciousness which have no logically possible continuation (while remaining conscious?) It seems the canonical example is surviving a nearby nuclear detonation. One logical possibility is that all your constituent particles quantum-tunnel away from the blast in time. Don't forget the Omega Point possibility, which sees you vapourised today but resurrected in simulation in the far future. Or perhaps at the moment of detonation it will be revealed to you that you are already living in a simulation, and the disaster is averted at the last moment by the programmers. It doesn't matter whether you are currently in the simulation or in the real world since the only thing that matters is where your *next moment* comes from. Your stream of consciousness would be the same if all the separate moments of your life were completely disconnected and mixed up in time, space or across separate real and simulated universes. This would be of extremely low measure in absolute terms, but what about an aside, it wasn't always so. Apparently, in the early years of Christianity the proportion of continuations that contain you as a conscious entity? This also touches on a recent thread about how being of low measure feels. If QTI is true, and I'm subject to a nuclear detonation, does it matter if my possible continuations are of such a low relative measure? Once I'm in them, would I feel any different and should I care? These questions may reduce to something like, Is there a lower limit to the amplitude of the SWE? If measure is infinitely divisible, then is there any natural scale to its absolute value? I raised a similar question on the list a few months ago when Tookie Wiliams was in the headlines and was eventually executed by the State of California. What possible continuations exist in this situation? In effect, we are being presented with a kind of 'yes doctor' in everyday life. Do you find that these considerations affect your own behaviour in any way? A very interesting question. If my expectation is that QTI is true and I'll be living for a very long time, I may adjust my financial planning accordingly. But QTI only applies to my own first-person view; I'll be constantly shedding branches where I did indeed die. If I have any financial dependents, do I provide for their welfare, even if they'll only exist forever outside my ability to interact with? Don't discount force of habit and social conditioning. Christians believe that when they die they will go to heaven, so logically they should be pleased, or at least only minimally upset, at the prospect of an asteroid instantly and painlessly wiping out all life on Earth. However, all but the craziest Christians would hope that such a thing does not happen, and essentially live their lives as if death is a bad thing for them and the people they care about. Maybe it's just a question of faith, as the September 11 terrorists did not have such qualms. Stathis Papaioannou _ Be one of the first to try Windows Live Mail. http://ideas.live.com/programpage.aspx?versionId=5d21c51a-b161-4314-9b0e-4911fb2b2e6d --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
RE: computationalism and supervenience
Brent meeker writes: We would understand it in a third person sense but not in a first person sense, except by analogy with our own first person experience. Consciousness is the difference between what can be known by observing an entity and what can be known by being the entity, or something like the entity, yourself. Stathis Papaioannou But you are simply positing that there is such a difference. That's easy to do because we know so little about how brains work. But consider the engine in your car. Do you know what it's like to be the engine in your car? You know a lot about it, but how do you know that you know all of it? Does that mean your car engine is conscious? I'd say yes it is (at a very low level) and you *can* know what it's like. No, I don't know what it's like to be the engine in my car. I would guess it isn't like anything, but I might be wrong. If I am wrong, then my car engine may indeed be conscious, but in a completely alien way, which I cannot understand no matter how much I learn about car mechanics, because I am not myself a car engine. I think the same would happen if we encountered an alien civilization. We would probably assume that they were conscious because we would observe that they exhibit intelligent behaviour, but only if by coincidence they had sensations, emotions etc. which reminded us of our own would we be able to guess what their conscious experience was actually like, and even then we would not be sure. Stathis Papaioannou _ Be one of the first to try Windows Live Mail. http://ideas.live.com/programpage.aspx?versionId=5d21c51a-b161-4314-9b0e-4911fb2b2e6d --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: computationalism and supervenience
Stathis Papaioannou wrote: Brent meeker writes: I don't recall anything about all computations implementing consciousness? Brent Meeker OK, this is the basis of our disagreement. I understood computationalism as the idea that it is the actual computation that gives rise to consciousness. For example, if you have a conscious robot shovelling coal, you could take the computations going on in the robot's processor and run it on another similar computer with sham inputs and the same conscious experience would result. And if the program runs on one computer, it can run on another computer with the appropriate emulation software (the most general case of which is the UTM), which should also result in the same conscious experience. I suppose it is possible that *actually shovelling the coal* is essential for the coal-shovelling experience, and an emulation of that activity just wouldn't do it. However, how can the robot tell the difference between the coal and the simulated coal, and how can it know if it is running on Windows XP or Mac OS emulating Windows XP? That has nothing to do with all computations implementing consciousness --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Russell's book
Stathis Papaioannou wrote: Tom Caylor writes: After many life-expectancy-spans worth of narrow escapes, after thousands or millions of years, wouldn't the probability be pretty high for my personality/memory etc. to change so much that I wouldn't recognize myself, or that I could be more like another person than my original self, and so for all practical purposes wouldn't I be another person? How do I know this hasn't happened already? If it has, what difference does it make? Isn't it true that the only realities that matter are the ones that make any difference to my reality? (almost a tautology) The only guarantee fom QTI is that you will experience a next moment: that there exists an observer moment in the universe which considers your present moment to be its predecessor. And this guarantee of a next experience is based on what? Also, if an observer moment can consider, this must be a very special observer moment. This leads to difficulties with partial memory loss, which are not unique to QTI but might actually occur in real life. For example, if you are in a car crash and end up in a vegetative state, this is usually taken as being effectively the same as ending up dead. If you wake up after the accident mentally intact except you have forgotten what you had for breakfast that morning then you have survived in much the same way you would have if you had never had the accident. If you consider that the world splits and there are only these two outcomes, or if you consider a teleportation experiment in which you are reconstituted in these two states at separate receiving stations, the conclusion seems straightforward enough: you will survive the ordeal having lost only your memory of what you had for breakfast. Now, consider a situation where there are 10 possible outcomes, or 10 possible teleportation destinations, ranging from #1 vegetative state (or headless corpse) to #10 intact except for memory of breakfast. In this scheme, #8 might be intact except you have forgotten 10% of what you have done in the past year, while #3 might be you have forgotten everything except what you learned before the age of two years. What is your expectation of survival in this situation? Stathis Papaioannou _ Be one of the first to try Windows Live Mail. http://ideas.live.com/programpage.aspx?versionId=5d21c51a-b161-4314-9b0e-4911fb2b2e6d --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: computationalism and supervenience
Stathis Papaioannou wrote: Brent Meeker writes: I don't have a clear idea in my mind of disembodied computation except in rather simple cases, like numbers and arithmetic. The number 5 exists as a Platonic ideal, and it can also be implemented so we can interact with it, as when there is a collection of 5 oranges, or 3 oranges and 2 apples, or 3 pairs of oranges and 2 triplets of apples, and so on, in infinite variety. The difficulty is that if we say that 3+2=5 as exemplified by 3 oranges and 2 apples is conscious, then should we also say that the pairs+triplets of fruit are also conscious? If so, where do we draw the line? I'm not sure I understand your example. Are you saying that by simply existing, two apples and 3 oranges compute 2+3=5? If so I would disagree. I would say it is our comprehending them as individual objects and also as a set that is the computation. Just hanging there on the trees they may be computing apple hanging on a tree, apple hanging on a tree,... but they're not computing 2+3=5. What about my example in an earlier post of beads on an abacus? You can slide 2 beads to the left, then another 3 beads to the left, and count a total of 5 beads; or 2 pairs of beads and 3 pairs of beads and count a total of 5 pairs of beads, or any other variation. Perhaps it seems a silly example when discussing consciousness, but the most elaborate (and putatively conscious) computation can be reduced to a complex bead-sliding exercise. And if sliding beads computes 2+3=5, why not if 2 birds and then 3 birds happen to land on a tree, or a flock of birds of which 2 are red lands on one tree and another flock of birds of which 3 are red lands on an adjacent tree? It is true that these birds and beads are not of much consequence computationally unless someone is there to observe them and interpret them, but what about the computer that is conscious chug-chugging away all on its own? No it's not a silly example; it's just that it seems that you are hypothesizing that I am providing the computation by seeing the apples as a pair, by seeing the beads as a triple and a pair and then as a quintuple. Above, this exchange began with you posing this as an example of a disembodied computation - but then the examples seem to depend on some (embodied) person witnessing them in order that the *be* computations. I guess I'm not convinced that it makes sense to say that anything can be a computation; other than in the trivial sense that it's a simulation of itself. I agree that there is a mapping to a computation - but in most cases the mapping is such that it seems more reasonable to say the computation is in the application of the mapping. And I dont' mean that the mapping is complex - a mapping from my brain states to yours would no doubt be very complex. I think the characteristic that would allow us to say the thinking was not in the mapping is something like whether it was static (like a look-up table) and not to large in some sense. That is what I mean when I say that any computation can map onto any physical system. But as you've noted before the computation is almost all in the mapping. And not just in the map, but in the application of the map - which is something we do. That action can't be abstracted away. You can't just say there's a physical system and there's a manual that would map it into some computation and stop there as though the computation has been done. The mapping, an action, still needs to be performed. What if the computer is built according to some ridiculously complex plan, plugged in, then all the engineers, manuals, etc. disappear. If it was conscious to begin with, does it suddenly cease being conscious because no-one is able to understand it? It could have been designed according to the radioactive decay patterns of a sacred stone, in which case without the documentation, its internal states might appear completely random. With the documentation, it may be possible to understand what it is doing or even interact with it, and you have said previously that it is the potential for interaction that allows it to be conscious, but does that mean it gradually becomes less conscious as pages of the manual are ripped out one by one and destroyed, even though the computer itself does not change its activity as a result? The physical structure and activity of computer A implementing program a may be completely different to that of computer B implementing program b, but program b may be an emulation of program a, which should make the two machines functionally equivalent and, under computationalism, equivalently conscious. I don't see any problem with supposing that A and B are equally conscious (or unconscious). But there is a mapping under which any machine B is emulating a machine A. But when is this mapping doing the computing
Re: computationalism and supervenience
Stathis Papaioannou wrote: Brent meeker writes: We would understand it in a third person sense but not in a first person sense, except by analogy with our own first person experience. Consciousness is the difference between what can be known by observing an entity and what can be known by being the entity, or something like the entity, yourself. Stathis Papaioannou But you are simply positing that there is such a difference. That's easy to do because we know so little about how brains work. But consider the engine in your car. Do you know what it's like to be the engine in your car? You know a lot about it, but how do you know that you know all of it? Does that mean your car engine is conscious? I'd say yes it is (at a very low level) and you *can* know what it's like. No, I don't know what it's like to be the engine in my car. I would guess it isn't like anything, but I might be wrong. If I am wrong, then my car engine may indeed be conscious, but in a completely alien way, which I cannot understand no matter how much I learn about car mechanics, because I am not myself a car engine. Then doesn't the same apply to your hypothetical conscious, but alien computer whose interpretative manuals are all lost? I think the same would happen if we encountered an alien civilization. We would probably assume that they were conscious because we would observe that they exhibit intelligent behaviour, but only if by coincidence they had sensations, emotions etc. which reminded us of our own would we be able to guess what their conscious experience was actually like, and even then we would not be sure. How could their inner experiences - sensations, emotions, etc - remind us of anything? We don't have access to them. It would have to be their interactions with the world and us that would cause us to infer their inner experiences; just as I infer when my dog is happy or fearful. Brent Meeker --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Proof that QTI is false
- Original Message - From: Brent Meeker [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Wednesday, September 13, 2006 5:47 AM Subject: Re: Proof that QTI is false Saibal Mitra wrote: QTI in the way defined in this list contradicts quantum mechanics. The observable part of the universe can only be in a finite number of quantum states. So, it can only harbor a finite number of observer moments or experiences a person can have, see here for details: http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0102010 If there can only be a finite number of observer moments you can only experience a finite amount of time. QED. So that would imply that when predicting states at some fixed finite time in the future there is a smallest, non-zero probability that is realizable. So if our prediction, using continuum variables as an approximation, indicates a probability lower than this value we should set it to zero?? Brent Meeker Yes, but you don't have to set anything to zero by hand. What happens is that if there are only a finite number of quantum states there is one which has the smallest non zero probability. Saibal --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Proof that QTI is false
Yes, I agree that you could still have some form of QTI if there are only a
finite number of states. I just don't believe in it, because I don't think
the use of the relative measure is justified in case the observer isn't
conserved. In all other case the absolute measure and the relative measure
lead to the same predictions.
Actually, in standard quantum mechanics, there is an infinity of
observer moments, 2^{\aleph_0} of them in fact.
What you are talking about are various quantum gravity theories, such
as string theory, which appear to have a finite number of observer
moments.
However, even if as observers we are locked into a Nietschian cycle at
some point in time due to finiteness of the number of possible states,
the number will be so large that the practical effects of QTI will
still need to be considered.
Cheers
- Original Message -
From: Russell Standish [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: everything-list@googlegroups.com
Sent: Wednesday, September 13, 2006 4:31 AM
Subject: Re: Proof that QTI is false
On Tue, Sep 12, 2006 at 11:58:14PM +0200, Saibal Mitra wrote:
QTI in the way defined in this list contradicts quantum mechanics. The
observable part of the universe can only be in a finite number of
quantum
states. So, it can only harbor a finite number of observer moments or
experiences a person can have, see here for details:
http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0102010
If there can only be a finite number of observer moments you can only
experience a finite amount of time.
QED.
--
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email came from me if you have PGP or GPG installed. Otherwise, you
may safely ignore this attachment.
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A/Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile)
Mathematics
UNSW SYDNEY 2052 [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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Saibal
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