Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
>
> Brent meeker writes:
>
>
>>>>>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.
>>>
>>>
>>>It's possible, but once you start in that direction you can say that only computations
>>>implemented on this machine rather than that machine can be conscious. You need the
>>>hardware in order to specify structure, unless you can think of a God-given programming
>>>language against which candidate computations can be measured.
>>
>>I regard that as a feature - not a bug. :-)
>>
>>Disembodied computation doesn't quite seem absurd - but our empirical sample argues
>>for embodiment.
>>
>>Brent Meeker
>
>
> I don't have a clear idea in my mind of disembodied computation except in rather simple cases,
> like numbers and arithmetic. The number 5 exists as a Platonic ideal, and it can also be implemented
> so we can interact with it, as when there is a collection of 5 oranges, or 3 oranges and 2 apples,
> or 3 pairs of oranges and 2 triplets of apples, and so on, in infinite variety. The difficulty is that if we
> say that "3+2=5" as exemplified by 3 oranges and 2 apples is conscious, then should we also say
> that the pairs+triplets of fruit are also conscious? If so, where do we draw the line?
I'm not sure I understand your example. Are you saying that by simply existing, two
apples and 3 oranges compute 2+3=5? If so I would disagree. I would say it is our
comprehending them as individual objects and also as a set that is the computation.
Just hanging there on the trees they may be "computing" apple hanging on a tree,
apple hanging on a tree,... but they're not computing 2+3=5.
>That is what I mean
> when I say that any computation can map onto any physical system.
But as you've noted before the computation is almost all in the mapping. And not
just in the map, but in the application of the map - which is something we do. That
action can't be abstracted away. You can't just say there's a physical system and
there's a manual that would map it into some computation and stop there as though the
computation has been done. The mapping, an action, still needs to be performed.
>The physical structure and activity
> of computer A implementing program a may be completely different to that of computer B implementing
> program b, but program b may be an emulation of program a, which should make the two machines
> functionally equivalent and, under computationalism, equivalently conscious.
I don't see any problem with supposing that A and B are equally conscious (or
unconscious).
Brent Meeker
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Received on Tue Sep 12 2006 - 13:41:03 PDT