RE: consciousness based on information or computation?

From: Higgo James <james.higgo.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Mon, 1 Feb 1999 14:43:42 -0000

        There is no difference between noise and signal except in the eye of
the beholder. No integer describes anything except in the eye of the
beholder. I am not sure what you mean "The simplest program just enumerates
all integer numbers."

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Gilles HENRI [SMTP:Gilles.Henri.domain.name.hidden]
> Sent: 01 February 1999 14:11
> To: Higgo James
> Cc: everything-list.domain.name.hidden
> Subject: RE: consciousness based on information or computation?
>
> >Schmidhuber suggests that there is just one program, as simple as
> possible,
> >and the simples program generates all possible universes with their
> >complement of consciousness or lack of it. So he and I agree that the
> fact
> >that there is an awful lot of 'noise' does not matter.
>
> James, the problem is not the amount of noise. The problem is how to
> distinguish a noise from a signal. Once again it has no meaning without an
> interpreter.
> There is also an inconsistency with time. In Schmidhuber's view, time is
> given by the ordering of outputs. But as you judiciously remark ( and in
> Deutsch's point of view I suppose) time is an illusion. Macroscopic worlds
> contain some structure that make them apparently related to other states
> that we call past and future. But this information is stored in the state
> itself. So the string in which this state would appear and its place in
> this string is immaterial. The simplest program just enumerates all
> integer
> numbers. If you can tell me which integer describes the existence of
> consciousness or to the existence of anything like an electron or whatever
> you want, I would be very grateful to you!
> Cheers
> Gilles
>
Received on Mon Feb 01 1999 - 06:51:11 PST