Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
> Peter Jones writes:
>
> > Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
> >
> > > Russell Standish writes:
> > >
> > > > If the same QM state is associated with different observer moments,
> > > > you must be talking about some non-functionalist approach to
> > > > consciousness. The QM state, by definition, contains all information
> > > > that can be extracted from observation.
> > >
> > > Functionalism explicitly allows that different physical states may implement
> > > the same observer moment. For example, OM1 could be implemented on a
> > > computer running Mac OS going through physical state S1, or by an equivalent
> > > program running on the same computer emulating Windows XP on Mac OS
> > > going through state S2. In this way, there is potentially a large number of
> > > distinct physical states S1, S2... Sn on the one machine all implementing OM1.
> > >
> > > Is there any reason to suppose inclusion of a physical state in this set S1... Sn
> > > prevents it from implementing any OM other than OM1?
> >
> > If "this set" is the set of all phsyical states that possibly implement
> > OM1, the any physical state either in the set, or doesn't belong there.
>
> But does that mean that a physical state which belongs in this set implements OM1
> and only OM1, or is it possible that a physical state may implement more than one
> OM?
Under physicalism, one physical state corresponds to one total
conscious state.
I suppose it is possible, even under constraints which exlude baroque
re-intrerpretations, for one physical state to implement more than
one computational state. A computational state is basically a subset of
a physical
state. A physical state could have two disjoint computational subsets.
This
is just "parallel processing". I suppose the human
equivalent would be patients who have had "split brain" surgery for
epilepsy.
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Received on Mon Oct 16 2006 - 09:26:24 PDT