Brent Meeker writes:
> > It is consistent with Maudlin's paper to say consciousness supervenes on no
> > physical activity - i.e. on computation as Platonic object - but it is also consistent
> > to say that it supervenes on a recording, or on any physical activity, and that
> > perhaps if there were no physical universe with at least a single quantum state
> > there would be no consciousness. Admittedly the latter is inelegant compared to
> > the "no physical supervenience" idea, but I can't quite see how to eliminate it
> > completely.
> But note that Maudlin's argument depends on being in a classical world. The quantum
> world in which we live the counterfactuals are always realized with some probability.
I assume you are referring to the MWI interpretation, in which the counterfactuals are
always realised in some branch with certainty; in a classical world, the counterfactuals
are realised with some probability just as in the CI of QM. In any case, I don't see that
it makes much difference to the argument. Consider this model of the MWI case. A machine
is made up of two parts, a1 and b1, such that a1 is active at a particular time and b1
comes into play from an inert state to alter the activity of a1 only if a counterfactual is
realised. It seems absurd to say that a1 is conscious when it undergoes some physical
activity with b1 hovering over it inertly (because the counterfactual is not realised) but not
conscious when it undergoes the same activity without b1 in place. But it seems no less
absurd to me to say that a1 or a1b1 is conscious with an identical machine next to it, a2b2,
in which the counterfactual is realised, but not if a2b2 is not present. For how would a1/a1b1
know or care about a2b2, whether in the next room or in another branch of the multiverse?
Stathis Papaioannou
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Received on Sat Oct 07 2006 - 10:36:21 PDT