Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
> Brent Meeker writes:
>
> > Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2007 16:52:01 -0800
> > From: meekerdb.domain.name.hidden
> > To: everything-list.domain.name.hidden
> > Subject: Re: Rép : The Meaning of Life
> >
> >
> > Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
> > >
> > > Bruno Marchal writes:
> > >
> > >> Le 23-janv.-07, à 06:17, Stathis Papaioannou a écrit :
> > >>
> > >>>>> Searle's theory is that consciousness is a result of actual brain
> > >>>>> activity, not Turing emulable.
> > >>>> Nooooo....... True: Searle's theory is that consciousness is a
> result
> > >>>> of brain activity, but nowhere does Searle pretend that brain is not
> > >>>> turing emulable. He just implicitly assume there is a notion of
> > >>>> actuality that no simulation can render, but does not address the
> > >>>> question of emulability. Then Searle is known for confusing level of
> > >>>> description (this I can make much more precise with the Fi and
> Wi, or
> > >>>> with the very important difference between computability
> (emulability)
> > >>>> and provability.
> > >>> Searle seems to accept that CT implies the brain is Turing emulable,
> > >>> but he
> > >>> does not believe that such an emulation would capture
> consciousness any
> > >>> more than a simulation of a thunderstorm will make you wet. Thus, a
> > >>> computer
> > >>> that could pass the Turing Test would be a zombie.
> > >>
> > >> Yes. It confirms my point. And Searle is coherent, he has to refer
> to a
> > >> notion of "physically real" for his non-computationalism to proceed.
> > >> He may be right. Now his naturalistic explanation of consciousness
> > >> seems rather ad hoc.
> > >> But all what I say is that IF comp is correct, we have to abandon
> > >> physicalism.
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>> Searle is not a computationalist - does not believe in strong AI
> - but
> > >>> he does
> > >>> believe in weak AI. Penrose does not believe in weak AI either.
> > >> Yes. In that way Searle is "not even wrong".
> > >
> > > Meaning what? I thought you agreed his position was coherent.
> > >
> > >> <snip: see my preceding post to you>
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>> If there are more arbitrary sequences than third person
> computations,
> > >>> how
> > >>> does it follow that arbitrary sequences are not computations?
> > >>
> > >> I guess I miss something (or you miss your statement?). Is it not
> > >> obvious that "if there are more arbitrary sequences than third person
> > >> computations, then some (even most) arbitrary sequences are not
> > >> computations".
> > >
> > > OK, but my concern was to find room in the arbitrary sequences for all
> > > computations, not the other way around (perhaps I didn't make this
> clear).
> > > Every rational number is also a real number.
> > >
> > >> Let us define what is a computable infinite sequence. A sequence is
> > >> computable if there is a program (a machine) which generates
> > >> specifically the elements of that sequence in the right order, and
> > >> nothing else. The set of programs is enumerable, but by Cantor
> theorem
> > >> the set of *all* sequences is not enumerable. So the set of
> computable
> > >> sequences is almost negligible compared to the arbitrary one.
> > >>
> > >> Does it mean there is no program capable of generating a non
> computable
> > >> sequence?
> > >>
> > >> Not at all. A universal dovetailer generates all the infinite
> > >> sequences. The computable one, (that is, those nameable by special
> > >> purpose, specific, program) and the non computable one (how? by
> > >> generating them all).
> > >>
> > >> I give another example of the same subtlety. One day a computer
> > >> scientist told me that it was impossible to write a program of n bits
> > >> capable of generating an incompressible finite sequence or string of
> > >> length m with m far greater than n. I challenge him.
> > >> Of course, what is true is that there is no program of n bit
> capable of
> > >> generating that m bits incompressible string, AND ONLY, SPECIFICALLY,
> > >> THAT STRING.
> > >> But it is really easy to write a little program capable of generating
> > >> that incompressible string by letting him generate ALL strings: the
> > >> program COUNT is enough.
> > >>
> > >> I think this *is* the main line of the *everything* list, or a
> > >> miniature version of it if you want.
> > >
> > > Yes, and there are many related examples, like Borges' library; I
> would include
> > > the computations that might be hiding in noise as another such
> example. The
> > > significant thing in all these cases is that from the third person
> perspective, the
> > > information or computation is inaccessible. You need to have the
> book you want
> > > already before you can find it in the Library of Babel. However, if
> computations
> > > (or books) can be conscious, then they will still be conscious
> despite being unable
> > > to communicate with the world at the level of their implementation.
> The first person
> > > perspective makes these situations non-trivial.
> >
> > Or you may regard it as a reductio against the proposition that a
> consciousness can be encapsulated. Perhaps consciousness is only
> relative to an open system. If the universe started from nothing, or
> very little in terms of information, then the unitary evolution of the
> wave function preserves information. Hence the information of the
> universe is very small. The apparent information, including that which
> describes conscious processes, is a consequence of projecting out onto a
> reduced basis.
>
> Isn't the universe taken as a whole equivalent to an encapsulated
> virtual environment
> with no I/O interaction with the "outside" ?
And as such it would not be conscious. You could pick out relative conscious processes within it (i.e. "you" being conscious of "that"), but only if you already knew about them.
>Also (an unrelated
> question), is it thought
> that structure and organisation in the universe will be evident at every
> scale, or if you
> stand back far enough might it look like a gas at a uniform temperature
> looks on a
> macroscopic scale?
In the Everett interpretation the Hilbert space of the universe might look like a gas in high dimension - if you could see something with lots of dimensions.
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Received on Fri Jan 26 2007 - 00:28:59 PST