Re: Maudlin's Demon (Argument)

From: Russell Standish <r.standish.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Wed, 4 Oct 2006 12:02:47 +1000

If I can sumarise George's summary as this:

In order to generate a recording, one must physically instantiate the
conscious computation. Consciousness supervenes on this, presumably.

Maudlin say aha - lets take the recording, and add to it an inert
machine that handles the counterfactuals. This combined machine is
computationally equivalent to the original. But since the new machine
is physically equivalent to a recording, how could consciousness
supervene on it. If we want to keep supervenience, there must be
something noncomputational that means the first machine is conscious,
and the second not.

Marchal says consciousness supervenes on neither of the physical
machines, but on the abstract computation, and there is only one
consciousness involved (not two).

Of course, this all applies to dreaming machines, or machines hooked
up to recordings of the real world. This is where I concentrate my
attack on the Maudlin argument (the Multiverse argument).

Cheers

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Received on Wed Oct 04 2006 - 19:37:14 PDT