Re: UDA revisited and then some

From: Brent Meeker <meekerdb.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Fri, 01 Dec 2006 11:05:16 -0800

Bruno Marchal wrote:
>
> Le 01-déc.-06, à 10:24, Stathis Papaioannou a écrit :
>
>>
>> Bruno Marchal writes:
>>
>>> <snip>
>>>
>>>> We can assume that the structural difference makes a difference to
>>>> consciousness but
>>>> not external behaviour. For example, it may cause spectrum reversal.
>>>
>>> Let us suppose you are right. This would mean that there is
>>> substitution level such that the digital copy person would act AS IF
>>> she has been duplicated at the correct level, but having or living a
>>> (1-person) spectrum reversal.
>>>
>>> Now what could that mean? Let us interview the copy and ask her the
>>> color of the sky. Having the same external behavior as the original,
>>> she will told us the usual answer: blue (I suppose a sunny day!).
>>>
>>> So, apparently she is not 1-aware of that spectrum reversal. This
>>> means
>>> that from her 1-person point of view, there was no spectrum reversal,
>>> but obviously there is no 3-description of it either ....
>>>
>>> So I am not sure your assertion make sense. I agree that if we take an
>>> incorrect substitution level, the copy could experience a spectrum
>>> reversal, but then the person will complain to her doctor saying
>>> something like "I have not been copied correctly", and will not pay
>>> her
>>> doctor bill (but this is a different external behaviour, ok?)
>> I don't doubt that there is some substitution level that preserves 3rd
>> person
>> behaviour and 1st person experience, even if this turns out to mean
>> copying
>> a person to the same engineering tolerances as nature has specified
>> for ordinary
>> day to day life. The question is, is there some substitution level
>> which preserves
>> 3rd person behaviour but not 1st person experience? For example,
>> suppose
>> you carried around with you a device which monitored all your
>> behaviour in great
>> detail, created predictive models, compared its predictions with your
>> actual
>> behaviour, and continuously refined its models. Over time, this device
>> might be
>> able to mimic your behaviour closely enough such that it could take
>> over control of
>> your body from your brain and no-one would be able to tell that the
>> substitution
>> had occurred. I don't think it would be unreasonable to wonder whether
>> this copy
>> experiences the same thing when it looks at the sky and declares it to
>> be blue as
>> you do before the substitution.
>
>
>
> Thanks for the precision.
> It *is* as reasonable to ask such a question as it is reasonable to ask
> if tomorrow my first person experience will not indeed permute my blue
> and orange qualia *including my memories of it* in such a way that my
> 3-behavior will remain unchanged. In that case we are back to the
> original spectrum reversal problem.
> This is a reasonable question in the sense that the answer can be shown
> relatively (!) undecidable: it is not verifiable by any external means,
> nor by the first person itself. We could as well conclude that such a
> change occurs each time the magnetic poles permute, or that it changes
> at each season, etc.
> *But* (curiously enough perhaps) such a change can be shown to be
> guess-able by some richer machine.
> The spectrum reversal question points on the gap between the 1 and 3
> descriptions. With acomp your question should be addressable in the
> terms of the modal logic Z and X, or more precisely Z1* minus Z1 and
> X1* minus X1, that is their true but unprovable (and undecidable)
> propositions. Note that the question makes no sense at all for the
> "pure 1-person" because S4Grz1* minus S4Grz1 is empty.
> So your question makes sense because at the level of the fourth and
> fifth hypo your question can be translated into purely arithmetical
> propositions, which although highly undecidable by the machine itself
> can be decided by some richer machine.
> And I would say, without doing the calculus which is rather complex,
> that the answer could very well be positive indeed, but this remains to
> be proved. At least the unexpected nuances between computability,
> provability, knowability, observability, perceivability (all redefined
> by modal variant of G) gives plenty room for this, indeed.
>
> Bruno
So what does your calculus say about the experience of people who wear glasses which invert their field of vision?
Brent Meeker
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Received on Fri Dec 01 2006 - 14:19:13 PST

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