Kory Heath wrote:
> On Nov 15, 2008, at 5:12 AM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
>
>> But if any computation can be mapped onto any physical state, then
>> every computation can be mapped onto one physical state; and why not
>> the null state?
>>
I'm not sure that works. In the original idea the mapping was to be
one-to-one (which is possible since a stone or other physical object has
many microscopic states). If the mapping is something like:
computation-state1---map1---->physical-state0
computation-state2---map2---->physical-state0
computation-state3---map3---->physical-state0
...
then the inverse mapping,
physical-state0---1map--->computation-state1
physical-state0---2map--->computation-state2
physical-state0---3map--->computation-state3
...
has to implicitly provide it's own order. So for the physical-state0 to
implement the computation there would have to be another index variable,
like time, to order the inverse mapping. Then it would really be
physical-state0-AT_SYMBOL- t=1---1map--->computation-state1
physical-state0-AT_SYMBOL- t=2---2map--->computation-state2
physical-state0-AT_SYMBOL- t=3---3map--->computation-state3
...
Right?
Brent.
>
> I guess I don't really have a clear picture of why the fact that any
> computation can be mapped onto a physical state should lead to the
> belief that (say) those mappings somehow support consciousnesses. I'm
> not very comfortable with the idea that a stone implements all
> computations. It may in fact be the case that those views are
> functionally equivalent to my suggestion that mathematical facts of
> the matter play the role that physical existence is supposed to play
> for the materialist, but I'm sticking with the latter formulation,
> because that's the one I actually understand.
>
> -- Kory
>
>
> >
>
>
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Received on Sat Nov 15 2008 - 23:36:32 PST