Brent Meeker writes:
> >>> If every computation is implemented everywhere anyway, this is equivalent to
> >>> the situation where every computation exists as a platonic object, or every
> >>> computation exists implemented on some computer or brain in a material
> >>> multiverse.
> >>
> >> But if implementing a particular computation depends on an observer, or a
> >> dicitonary, or somesuch, it is not the case that everything implements every
> >> computation unless it can be shown that evey dictionary somehow exists as well.
> >
> >
> > The computation provides its own observer if it is conscious, by definition.
>
> I'm always suspicious of things that are true "by definition". How exactly does an
> observer provide meaning or whatever it is that makes a computation? And how does
> consciousness fulfill this function. I, in my conscious thoughts, certainly don't
> "observe" the computation that my brain performs. In fact my thoughts seem to spring
> from nowhere more or less spontaneously in coherent trains or as prompted by
> perceptions.
Let's not try to define consciousness at all, but agree that we know what it is from personal
experience. Computationalism is the theory that consciousness arises as a result of
computer activity: that our brains are just complex computers, and in the manner of
computers, could be emulated by another computer, so that computer would experience
consciousness in the same way we do. (This theory may be completely wrong, and
perhaps consciousness is due to a substance secreted by a special group of neurons
or some other such non-computational process, but let's leave that possibility aside for
now). What we mean by one computer emulating another is that there is an isomorphism
between the activity of two physical computers, so that there is a mapping function
definable from the states of computer A to the states of computer B. If this mapping
function is fully specified we can use it practically, for example to run Windows on an
x86 processor emulated on a Power PC processor running Mac OS. If you look at the Power
PC processor and the x86 processor running side by side it would be extremely difficult to
see them doing the "same" computation, but according to the mapping function inherent in the
emulation program, they are, and they still would be a thousand years from now even if the
human race is extinct.
In a similar fashion, there is an isomorphism between a computer and any other physical
system, even if the mapping function is unknown and extremely complicated. That's not very
interesting for non-conscious computations, because they are only useful or meaningful
if they can be observed or interact with their environment. However, a conscious computation
is interesting all on its own. It might have a fuller life if it can interact with other minds, but its
meaning is not contingent on other minds the way a non-conscious computation's is. I know
this because I am conscious, however difficult it may be to actually define that term.
The conclusion I therefore draw from computationalism is that every possible conscious
computation is implemented necessarily if any physical process exists. This seems to me very
close to saying that every conscious computation is implemented necessarily in Platonia, as the
physical reality seems hardly relevant.
Stathis Papaioannou
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Received on Tue Sep 05 2006 - 01:43:12 PDT