Re: A nerw idea to play with

From: Marchal <marchal.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Fri Sep 3 08:19:25 1999

Gilles Henri wrote:

>To tell it again, I think we are "too much" analogical to be
>"psychologically equivalent" to anything else than ourselves.

I can understand the psychological appeal for self-unicity.
But I am not sure there is evidence for our analogicalness, nor
am I sure I understand the word.

>You escaped the question of the environment in your thesis by considering a
>dreaming machine. But if the machine is not able to interact with the
>environment, it is very improbable that it actually dreams, even if it
>pictures perfectly a dreaming brain, bacause you cannot dream of something
>you never experiment in the reality.

I think, by some other mail you send, that you have understand
my proof that if we are digital machine there is no environment
at all, in the sense you are using here.
If you think that it is a sufficient reason to abandon the
mechanist hypothesis, why not. But nobody has ever gives a proof
of the existence of a 'substancial' neighborhood, so it is a
matter of religious belief or axiomatic hypothesis.

> One practical problem is how can you check that your system is really
>thinking?

How can you check that 'anything' is thinking ? There is no possible
check.
To *attribute* thinking is a kind of social betting strategy.
(Independently of the fact that 'God' knows the truth).
Turing test can help to make your mind, but it is neither
necessary (cf paralised people) nor sufficient (some people
HAVE attributed consciousness to Feigenbaum's ELIZA).

>>Do you really think that someone believe a digital machine can emulate
>>in extenso (completely) an analogical machine (if that exist) ?
>>I don't believe that such an idea ever emerged from computer science.
>>If that idea is what you mean by comp2, I think that this
>>crackpot idea emerges in your own mind.
>>
>
>I think many contributors said that, including James in his last mail!

Remember that if we are digital machine, then, by the delocalisation
of consciousness, we are automatically facing the continuum, from a
first person perspective.
For exemple if our never-ending life depends on the value of any
decimal of Planck constant, we will ever make the experience of facing
the correct "Planck constant". This comes from the fact that the UD
dovetails on all computations on all real oracles (and the no-escape
branch have measure 0).
But I guess that is not what you mean. Is it?
So I am stuck in an abyss of perplexity when you define comp2 by
"a digital machine" can emulate (from a third person perspective) an
analogical machine.
I don't think James or any other many-worlder has ever say something
like that. It would be like to simulate 2$ with 1$.
Only dishonest people can do that, for a short time.

Bruno
Received on Fri Sep 03 1999 - 08:19:25 PDT