Replies to Jason Resch and Brent Meeker:
On 01 Nov 2008, at 12:26, Jason Resch wrote:
> I've thought of an interesting modification to the original UDA
> argument which would suggest that one's consciousness is at both
> locations simultaneously.
>
> Since the UDA accepts digital mechanism as its first premise, then
> it is possible to instantiate a consciousness within a computer.
> Therefore instead of a physical teleportation from Brussels to
> Washington and Moscow instead we will have a digital transfer. This
> will allow the experimenter to have complete control over the input
> each mind receives and guarantee identical content of experience.
>
> A volunteer in Brussels has her brain frozen and scanned at the
> necessary substitution level and the results are loaded into a
> computer with the appropriate simulation software that can
> accurately model her brain's functions, therefore from her
> perspective, her consciousness continues onward from the time her
> brain was frozen.
>
> To implement the teleportation, the simulation in the computer in
> Brussels is paused, and a snapshot of the current state is sent over
> the Internet to two computers, one in Washington and the other in
> Moscow, each of these computers has the same simulation software and
> upon receipt, resume the simulation of the brain where it left off
> in Brussels.
>
> The question is: if the sensory input is pre-fabricated and
> identical in both computers, are there two minds, or simply two
> implementations of the same mind? If you believe there are two
> minds, consider the following additional steps.
Only one mind, belonging to two relative histories (among an infinity).
>
> Since it was established that the experimenter can "teleport" minds
> by pausing a simulation, sending their content over the network, and
> resuming it elsewhere, then what happens if the experimenter wants
> to teleport the Washington mind to Moscow, and the Moscow mind to
> Washington? Assume that both computers were preset to run the
> simulation for X number of CPU instructions before pausing the
> simulation and transferring the state, such that the states are
> exactly the same when each is sent. Further assume that the
> harddrive space on the computers is limited, so as they receive the
> brain state, they overwrite their original save.
>
> During this procedure, the computers in Washington and Moscow each
> receive the other's brain state, however, it is exactly the same as
> the one they already had. Therefore the overwriting is a no-op.
> After the transfer is complete, each computer resumes the
> simulation. Now is Moscow's mind on the Washington computer? If so
> how did a no-op (overwriting the file with the same bits) accomplish
> the teleportation, if not, what makes the teleportation fail?
>
> What happens in the case where the Washington and Moscow computer
> shutdown for some period of time (5 minutes for example) and then
> ONLY the Moscow computer is turned back on. Did a "virtual"
> teleportation occur between Washington and Moscow to allow the
> consciousness that was in Washington to continue? If not, then
> would a physical transfer of the data from Washington to Moscow have
> saved its consciousness, and if so, what happened to the Moscow
> consciousness?
>
> The above thought experiments led me to conclude that both computers
> implement the same mind and are the same mind, despite having
> different explanations.
Rigth.
> Turning off one of the computers in either Washington or Moscow,
> therefore, does not end the consciousness.
Yes.
> Per the conclusions put forth in the UDA, the volunteer in Brussels
> would say she has a 1/2 chance of ending up in the Washington
> computer and 1/2 chance of ending up in the Moscow computer.
> Therefore, if you told her "15 minutes after the teleportation the
> computer in Washington will be shut off forever" she should expect a
> 1/2 chance of dying. This seems to be a contradiction, as there is
> a "virtual" teleportation from Washington to Moscow which saves the
> consciousness in Washington from oblivion. So her chances of death
> are 0, not 1/2, which is only explainable if we assume that her mind
> is subjectively in both places after the first teleport from
> Brussels, and so long as a simulation of her mind exists somewhere
> she will never die.
And an infinity of those simulations exists, a-spatially and a-
temporally, in arithmetic, (or in the "standard model of
arithmetic") which entails comp-immortality (need step 8!). Actually
a mind is never really located somewhere. Location is a construct of
the mind. A (relative) body is what makes it possible for a mind to
manifest itself relatively to some history/computation-from-inside.
The movie graph argument (the 8th of UDA) justifies the necessity of
this, but just meditation on the phantom limbs can help. The pain is
not in the limb (given the absence of the limb), and the pain is not
in the brain, (the brain is not sensitive) yet the subject locates the
pain in the limb. Similarly we located ourself in space time, but if
you push the logic of comp to its ultimate conclusion you understand
that, assuming comp, space time is a phantom itself. Plato was on the
right (with respect to comp) track.
(Math: And computer science makes it possible to derive the
mathematical description of that phantom, making comp Popper
falsifiable. The phantom can be mathematically recovered from
intensional variants of self-referential (Godel) provability modality
G and G*).
==========================
Brent Meeker wrote
> My guess is that eventually we'll be able to create AI/robots that
> seem
> as intelligent and conscious as, for example, dogs seem.
> We'll also be
> able to partially map brains so that we can say that when these
> neurons
> do this the person is thinking thus and so. Once we have this degree
> of
> understanding and control, questions about "consciousness" will no
> longer seem relevant. They'll be like the questions that philosophers
> asked about life before we understood the molecular functions of
> living
> systems. They would ask:Where is the life? Is a virus alive? How
> does
> life get passed from parent to child? The questions won't get
> answered; they'll just be seen as the wrong questions.
You don't get the point. Mechanism is incompatible with naturalism. To
solve the mind body problem, keeping mechanism, the laws of physicist
have to be explained from computer science, even from the gap between
computer science and computer's computer science ...
Physics is the fixed point of universal machine self observation.
Let me know at which step (1?, ... 8?) you have a problem? The only
one not discussed thoroughly is the 8th one.
To be sure, do you understand the nuance between the following theses:
WEAK AI: some machines can behave as if their were conscious (but
could as well be zombies)
STRONG AI: some machines can be conscious
COMP: I am a machine
We have
COMP => STRONG AI => WEAK AI
WEAK does not imply STRONG AI which does not imply COMP. (it is not
because machine can be conscious that we are necessarily machine
ourself, of course with occam razor, STRONG AI go in the direction of
COMP).
Does those nuances make sense? If not (1...8) does not, indeed, make
sense. You just don't believe in consciousness and/or person like in
the eliminative materialism of neuro-philosophers ( the Churchland,
amost Dennett in "consciousness explained").
Or you make us very special infinite analogical machines, but then you
drop the digital mechanist thesis (even the naturalist one, which has
been shown inconsistent by 1...8.)
Bruno Marchal
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
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Received on Sun Nov 02 2008 - 11:08:44 PST