Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
> Russell Standish writes:
>
> > Its a fair point, given that we can't exactly define consciousness,
> > but doesn't it seem a tad unlikely to you?
> >
> > The point is that in a Multiverse our own consciousnesses are not
> > equivalent to recordings is suggestive, but not conclusive, that
> > recordings aren't conscious.
>
> Is there any reason to believe that we would lose consciousness, or notice
> that anything strange had happened at all, if most or all of the parallel branches
> in the multiverse suddenly vanished?
Yes. If all the following are true:
1) we, as conscious beings, are computations
2) computations require counterfactuals.
3) Multiple branches implement countefactuals.
> > The Maudlin/movie-graph argument relies upon the equivalence *in fact*
> > of recordings and computations in a single universe. Hence the focus
> > on *counter fact*.
>
> These arguments seem to take it as axiomatic that consciousness requires the
> handling of counterfactuals. Perhaps the origin of this idea is the reasonable
> observation that intelligent entities worthy of the name must be able to adjust
> to changes in the environment.
The origin is computationalism. You could abadon it, but you would
need
to find another route to Platonism.
> However, the effect of intelligent beings who
> interact in surprising ways with their environment could be created by a sufficiently
> complex computer program or model universe, like a cellular automaton, with fixed
> rules + initial conditions, playing out the same way however many times it was run.
Fixed rules+initial conditions can be reduced to fixed output,
which is no-one's idea of computation..
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Received on Thu Aug 24 2006 - 20:55:46 PDT