Re: computationalism and supervenience

From: Colin Geoffrey Hales <c.hales.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Sun, 17 Sep 2006 09:16:30 +1000 (EST)

>
>
> Colin Geoffrey Hales wrote:
>> >
>
>> Q. What is it like to be a human? It is like being a mind. There is
>> information delivered into the mind by the action of brain material
>> which
>> bestows on the human intrinsic knowledge about the natural world outside
>> the human....in the form of phenomenal consciousness. This knowledge is
>> not a model/abstraction, but a literal mapping of what's there (no
>> matter
>> how mysterious its generation may seem).
>
> What is the difference between a "model" and a "literal mapping" ?

Real physics C(.) does something (goes through certain states).
Real physics f(C(.)) does something (directly tracks the states of C(.).

A state machine S that abstracts the states of C(.) is a model.
f(.) is a literal mapping.

Humans to f(.), computers do S.

>
>> The zombie does not have this.
>
> Why not ?

Because the physics of f(.) above is not there.

>
>> Nor does the Turing machine.
>
>
>> No matter how good the a-priori abstraction given by the human the UM
>> will
>> do science on its sensory feeds until it can no longer distinguish any
>> effect because the senses cannot discriminate it
>
> Don't humans have sensory limits?

Yes, but the sensory fields are NOT what is used in intelligence. The
sensory fields are used to generate the phenomenal fields. The phenomenal
fields are used to be intelligent. Human phenomenal fields to not include
a representation of neutrino flux. A zombie could never know of neutrinos!
...because they are incapable of observation of their causal descendants
(no phenomenal fields). Our sensory data did not deliver evidence of
neurtrinos...our phenomenal fields did!

In terms of the symbols above....

The zombie can construct an S from sensory fields predictive of the impact
of C(.) on its own sensory data. But the relationship of this S to the
outside world C(.)? It can never know. C(.) could put 5 billion other
states in between all the states detected by the zombie sensory data and
the zombie would have no clue. Zombie science is the science of zombie
senory data, not science of the natural world outside the zombie.

Of course you can mentally increase the amount of dta and the
computational intellect of teh zombie to arbitrary levels.... all you are
doing is moving the abstractions around. The zombie still has no internal
life, no awareness there is a natural world at all.

cheers
colin hales






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Received on Sat Sep 16 2006 - 19:17:35 PDT

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