On Nov 28, 10:17 am, Stathis Papaioannou
<stathispapaioan....domain.name.hidden> wrote:
> This seems to me a bit muddled (though in a good way: ideas breaking surface at
> the limits of what can be expressed). If the duplicate is a "functional" one then
> there can't be any difference to its possible behaviour, by definition.
You're right - it's muddled, but as you imply there is the glimmer of
an idea trying to break through. What I'm saying is that the
'functional' - i.e. 3-person description - not only of the PZ, but of
*anything* - fails to capture the information necessary for PC. Now,
this isn't intended as a statement of belief in magic, but rather that
the 'uninstantiated' 3-person level (i.e. when considered abstractly)
is simply a set of *transactions*. But - beyond the abstract - the
instantiation or substrate of these transactions is itself an
information 'domain' - the 1-person level - that in principle must be
inaccessible via the transactions alone - i.e. you can't see it 'out
there'. But by the same token it is directly accessible via
instantiation - i.e. you can see it 'in here'
For this to be what is producing PC, the instantiating, or
constitutive, level must be providing whatever information is necessary
to 'animate' 3-person transactional 'data' in phenomenal form, and in
addition whatever processes are contingent on phenomenally-animated
perception must be causally effective at the 3-person level (if we are
to believe that possessing PC actually makes a difference). This seems
a bit worrying in terms of the supposed inadmissability of 'hidden
variables' in QM (i.e the transactional theory of reality).
Notwithstanding this, if what I'm saying is true (which no doubt it
isn't), then it would appear that information over and above what is
manifested transactionally would be required to account for PC, and for
whatever transactional consequences are contingent on the possession of
PC.
Just to be clear about PZs, it would be a consequence of the foregoing
that a functionally-equivalent analog of a PC entity *might* possess
PC, but that this would depend critically on the functional
*substitution level*. We could be confident that physical cloning
(duplication) would find the right level, but in the absence of this,
and without a theory of instantiation, we would be forced to rely on
the *behaviour* of the analog in assessing whether it possessed PC.
But, on reflection, this seems right.
David
> David Nyman writes:
> > 1. To coherently conceive that a PZ which is a *functional* (not
> > physical) duplicate can nonetheless lack PC - and for this to make any
> > necessary difference to its possible behaviour - we must believe that
> > the PZ thereby lacks some crucial information.
> > 2. Such missing information consequently can't be captured by any
> > purely *functional* description (however defined) of the non-PZ
> > original.
> > 3. Hence having PC must entail the possession and utilisation of
> > information which *in principle* is not functionally (3-person)
> > describable, but which, in *instantiating* 3-person data, permits it to
> > be contextualised, differentiated, and actioned in a manner not
> > reproducible by any purely functional (as opposed to constructable)
> > analog.This seems to me a bit muddled (though in a good way: ideas breaking surface at
> the limits of what can be expressed). If the duplicate is a "functional" one then
> there can't be any difference to its possible behaviour, by definition.
>
> Colin could have made his point by saying that a PZ is impossible, as only a
> conscious person can act like a conscious person when faced with a difficult
> enough test, such as doing science. Ironically, this is the same conclusion as
> standard computationalism, which Colin opposes.
>
>
>
> > Now this seems to tally with what Colin is saying about the crucial
> > distinction between the *content* of PC and whatever is producing it.
> > It implies that whatever is producing it isn't reducible to sharable
> > 3-person quanta. This seems also (although I may be confused) to square
> > with Bruno's claims for COMP that the sharable 3-person emerges from
> > (i.e. is instantiated by) the 1-person level. As he puts it -'quanta
> > are sharable qualia'. IOW, the observable - quanta - is the set of
> > possible transactions between functionally definable entities
> > instantiated at a deeper level of representation (the constitutive
> > level). This is why we see brains not minds.
>
> > It seems to me that the above, or something like it, must be true if we
> > are to take the lessons of the PZ to heart. IOW, the information
> > instantiated by PC is in principle inaccessible to a PZ because the
> > specification of the PZ as a purely functional 3-person analog is
> > unable to capture the necessary constitutive information. The
> > specification is at the wrong level. It's like trying to physically
> > generate a new computer by simply running more and more complex
> > programs on the old one. It's only by *constructing* a physical
> > duplicate (or some equivalent physical analog) that the critical
> > constitutive - or instantiating - information can be captured.If PZ's do exist, then there has to be a clear 3-person difference between
> the PZ and its PC-possessing brother: different physical structure, if not
> different behaviour. A machine based on semiconductors is not conscious,
> but the equivalent machine based on thermionic valves and doing the same
> computations is. Far-fetched, I don't believe it, and we could never *know*
> that it was the case (not even the computers themselves could know it was
> the case, i.e. whether they are conscious, unconscious or differently
> conscious), but we would have all the information there very clearly 3-person
> accessible.
>
> There is another possibility: this machine lacks PC, that identical functionally
> *and* physically identical machine has it. The problem is, we need to invoke
> magic to explain this.
>
> > We have to face it. We won't find PC 'out there' - if we could, it
> > would (literally) be staring us in the face. I think what Colin is
> > trying to do is to discover how we can still do science on PC despite
> > the fact that whatever is producing it isn't capturable by 'the
> > observables', but rather only in the direct process and experience of
> > observation itself.
>
> > DavidStathis Papaioannou
> _________________________________________________________________
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Received on Tue Nov 28 2006 - 07:58:41 PST