Re: consciousness based on information or computation?

From: Gilles HENRI <Gilles.Henri.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Fri, 29 Jan 1999 11:41:41 +0100

>On Wed, Jan 27, 1999 at 01:22:02PM -0500, Jacques M Mallah wrote:

> What I mean is that this property cannot be defined by considering only an
> abstract computation, string , and other mathematical object. The point is
> that the sense that we commonly adopt for the word "consciousness" is not
> directly related to some objective complexity, but rather to the adequation
> of mental objects to the outer world. The complexity is only a requirement
> for that adequation to be correct. Of course it is in principle possible to
> simulate adequately a brain by a computation, but this computation will
> take its meaning only with the help of a relevant "mapping" to an actual
> brain. I defy anybody to look at a list of 10^(what you want) digits 0 or 1
> and to say : "oh, that's a brain of somebody dreaming of (put here your
> favorite actress)". But that could be in principle possible by inspecting
> the state of a all neural cells and recognize those neurons that react to
> pretty images and so on. However this mapping requires also the knowledge
> of the connections to I/O devices, that are our only way to know the world.

        That's irrelevant. There is no external observer deciding what my
brain is thinking. There is only the internal observer - me - who is
having the conscious experience. The computation takes its meaning not
>from what an external observer could say about it, but from what it's like
to be me, that computation.

I agree, but do YOU imagine being able to think of something without having
ever interacting with an environment? Do you think this makes sense? Can
you think of some facts you cannot rely in any way with any sensorial
perception?


À (At) 16:18 -0800 27/01/99, Wei Dai écrivait (wrote) :
>On Wed, Jan 27, 1999 at 01:22:02PM -0500, Jacques M Mallah wrote:
>> And it's not at all clear to me that static strings, without
>> dynamics or decisions, could have anything to do with consciousness.
>> Stalemate. We may never agree on this one. I think more people
>> would support my position than yours, but that's not saying much.
>
>Let's see if there isn't a reasonable way out of this stalemate. First of
>all it's obvious that consciousness must have something to do with
>information. Now a binary string is the simplest kind of object that can
>contain information, but any discrete structure that can contain
>information can also be encoded as binary strings. Therefore binary
>strings are a universal container of information. If pure structure can
>sustain consciousness, then binaries strings can sustain consciousness. Do
>you agree so far?

Personally I don't. I don't think that a binary string contains information
in the same sense as consciousness. It is infortunate and confusing that
Shannon has chosen this word for his theory. Binary strings can *encode*
information, but the meaning of this information (in the human sense) needs
an *external* coder and decoder. The information in the human sense is
contained in the string PLUS the code that connects the string to some kind
of physical reality (including possible outputs to an external observer).
Consciousness needs both features.

>That is not the model I have in mind. It doesn't seem sensible to think of
>a universe with a continuous infinity of Turing machines. Instead I assume
>that the universe starts with one Turing machine with a blank (read-only)
>input tape, then before each clock cycle each existing Turing machine is
>cloned, with 0 appended to the input tape of one copy, and 1 appended to
>the input tape of the other.

For a physicist, this kind of thought is totally irrelevant. What are your
Turing machines made of? It seems to me that computational science is
sometimes much more like Middle Age theology than modern science.

Gilles
Received on Fri Jan 29 1999 - 02:45:39 PST