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.
I fail to see why. Computations obviously do have structural
properties.
Why shouldn't consciousness supervene on them ?
> 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.
Yes, but "anything implements any computation" isn't a legitimate
conclusion
of computationalism or anything else. That being the case, there is no
need for special pleading for consciousness.
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Received on Tue Sep 12 2006 - 07:22:03 PDT