Re: computationalism and supervenience

From: 1Z <peterdjones.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Fri, 25 Aug 2006 00:53:54 -0000

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

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