Brent Meeker wrote:
> Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
> > Peter Jones writes:
> >
> > [Stathis Papaioannou]
> >
> >>>> 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. This gives rise to the issues of quantum immortality and the
> >>>> white rabbit problem, as discussed at great length in the past on this list.
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> One way to discredit all this foolishness is to abandon computationalism...
> >
> >
> > [Brent Meeker]
> >
> >>> I don't see how assuming consciousness is non-computational solves any of
> >>> these conundrums about every object implementing every possible computation.
> >
> >
> >
> >> It would mean that every object implementing every possible computation doesn't
> >> imply that every object is conscious. Of course, one can also deny that
> >> conclusion be regading computation as structural rather than semantic.
> >
> >
> > You don't have to go as far as saying that *computation* is structural rather than
> > semantic. You only need to say that *consciousness* is structural, and hence
> > non-computational. That's what some cognitive scientists have done, eg. Penrose,
> > Searle, Maudlin. Personally, I don't see why there is such a disdain for the idea
> > that every computation is implemented, including every conscious computation. The
> > idea is still consistent with all the empirical facts, since we can only interact
> > with a special subset of computations, implemented on conventional computers and
> > brains.
> >
> > Stathis Papaioannou
>
> Unless you can say what it is about a computation that makes it a unique computation
> to us and what it is about a computation that makes is conscious, then nothing has
> been gained. Clearly it is not true that we can interact only with computations in
> brains and computers. We can interact with pool balls and molecules and weather and
> lots of other things.
But we can't interact with more than one of the computations
a pool ball is supposedly performing -- the rest are just hypothetical
possibilities.
> Brent Meeker
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Received on Tue Sep 05 2006 - 09:44:11 PDT