Russell Standish wrote:
> On Tue, Aug 22, 2006 at 01:32:14PM +1000, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
> >
> > Bruno Marchal writes:
> >
> > > > The other sticking point is, given computationalism
> > > > is right, what does it take to implement a computation? There have
> > > > been arguments
> > > > that a computation is implemented by any physical system (Putnam,
> > > > Searle, Moravec)
> > > > and by no physical system (Maudlin, Bruno Marchal).
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > OK. To be sure Maudlin would only partially agree. Maudlin shows (like
> > > me) that we have:
> > >
> > > NOT COMP or NOT PHYSICAL SUPERVENIENCE
> >
> > That sentence summarises the problem pretty well. We have to agree that there is this dichotomy before proceeding further, and I don't think most computationalists do.
> >
>
> To be sure, this is not how I interpret Maudlin or the movie-graph
> argument. I interpret it as NOT COMP or NOT PHYS SUP or NOT SINGLE_UNIVERSE.
>
> In a multiple universe (eg Everett style MWI), all counterfactuals are
> instantiated as well, so physical supervenience (over all branches) is
> compatible to COMP, and not equivalent to a recording.
That is an interesting point. However, a computation would have to be
associated
with all related branches in order to bring all the counterfactuals (or
rather
conditionals) into a single computation.
(IOW treating branches individually would fall back into the problems
of the Movie approach)
If a computation is associated with all branches, consciousness will
also be
according to computationalism. That will bring on a White Rabbit
problem with a vengeance.
However, it is not that computation cannot be associated with
counterfactuals
in single-universe theories -- in the form of unrealised possibilities,
dispositions and so on. If consciousness supervenes on
computation , then it supervenes on such counterfactuals too;
this amounts to the response to Maudlin's argument in
wich the physicalist abandons the claim that consciousness supervenes
on activity.
Of ocurse, unactualised possibilities in a sinlge universe are never
going to lead to
any White Rabbit!.
> Cheers
>
> --
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> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> A/Prof Russell Standish Phone 8308 3119 (mobile)
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Received on Tue Aug 22 2006 - 09:20:20 PDT