Re: computationalism and supervenience

From: Brent Meeker <meekerdb.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Sun, 10 Sep 2006 20:38:50 -0700

Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
> Peter Jones writes:
>
>
>>>I'm not sure how the multiverse comes into the discussion, but you have
>>>made the point several times that a computation depends on an observer
>>
>>
>>No, I haven't! I have tried ot follow through the consequences of
>>assuming it must.
>>It seems to me that some sort of absurdity or contradiction ensues.
>
>
> OK. This has been a long and complicated thread.
>
>
>>>for its meaning. I agree, but *if* computations can be conscious (remember,
>>>this is an assumption) then in that special case an external observer is not
>>>needed.
>>
>>Why not ? (Well, I would be quite happy that a conscious
>>computation would have some inherent structural property --
>>I want to foind out why *you* would think it doesn't).
>
>
> I think it goes against standard computationalism if you say that a conscious
> computation has some inherent structural property. Opponents of computationalism
> have used the absurdity of the conclusion that anything implements any conscious
> computation as evidence that there is something special and non-computational
> about the brain. Maybe they're right.
>
> Stathis Papaioannou

Why not reject the idea that any computation implements every possible computation
(which seems absurd to me)? Then allow that only computations with some special
structure are conscious.

Brent Meeker

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Received on Sun Sep 10 2006 - 23:39:51 PDT

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