On 16/02/2008, John Ku <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > In order to really fix this example, it seems he would have to posit > asteroids whose gravitational effects on each other are genuinely isomorphic > to all the causal interactions the physical particles making up our brain > have on each other. There'd be no need in this example to posit any possible > computer to correlate data from asteroids with computations because the > asteroids would have formed an actual computational system. But if there > really were such an intricate network of interacting asteroids, it seems to > me the Functionalist would no longer treat it as an absurd result and happily > concede that the asteroids have miraculously formed into an actual computer, > or at least an information-processing system, that is relevantly similar to a > brain and therefore conscious. (I imagine the chances of this are vanishingly > small (at least for most finite regions of space) since the dynamic > information-processing we are interested in with respect to positing > consciousness would probably require this complex network of asteroids to > persist for some time with its functional integrity intact.)
You have to consider not only those systems of asteroids which are miraculously isomorphic with a particular human brain, but also those which are isomorphic with *any possible* implementation of that brain. There's no reason to restrict computers to those that might be dreamed up by human engineers. For example, you could have each second of consciousness implemented on a series of different Turing-complete devices, each more complicated and bizarre than its predecessor. -- Stathis Papaioannou ------------------------------------------- singularity Archives: http://www.listbox.com/member/archive/11983/=now RSS Feed: http://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/11983/ Modify Your Subscription: http://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=4007604&id_secret=96140713-a54b2b Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
