Peter Jones writes:
> Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
> > Peter Jones writes:
> >
> > > > Is it possible that we are currently actors in a single, deterministic, non-branching
> > > > computer program, with the illusion of free will and if-then contingency in general
> > > > being due to the fact that we don't know the details of how the program will play
> > > > out?
> > >
> > > Lots of things are possible. The question is what to believe.
> >
> > True, but I thought you were saying that such a thing was incompatible with consciousness,
> > and I see no reason to believe that.
>
> There are a lot of prolems with what you are saying.
>
> I don't think it is possible to get dynamism out of stasis,
> and I don't think it is possible to get qualia out of mathematical
> structues
But what about a physical computer which creates an entire virtual environment, complete
with sentient beings? Once started up it would be completely deterministic, just as a recording
would be. It could have if-then statements but these would not make any difference, given initial
conditions. (A recording also has if-then statements, in that if the input were different, the
output would also be different.) This could as easily be a real model of a classical universe, with
no interference from outside once initial conditions + laws of physics had been set. The if-then
statements are implicit in the laws of physics: if I throw a rock, it will follow a parabolic trajectory
and shatter the window. As an inhabitant of the univerese I think I have free will in deciding whether
or not to throw the rock, but in fact this is no more indeterminate than the workings of a clockwork
mechanism. My understanding is that standard computationalism allows for consciousness to occur
in such a universe, even if it isn't the universe we actually live in. If not, then you have to abandon
computationalism and embrace something like Penrose's theory in which essentially non-computable
quantum effects are responsible for consciousness; or maybe we've just all been issued with a soul
by God.
Stathis Papaioannou
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Received on Sun Aug 20 2006 - 23:39:40 PDT