Quentin,
Ok, but what if consciousness is a computational process that
potentially depends on the entire state of the universe? Let's suppose
for example that quantum particles are the fundamental building
blocks, i.e. the hardware, and that consciousness is a computational
process that emerges from their interactions. We still have MEC+MAT,
and due to quantum entanglement, any quantum particle in the universe
can potentially interfere in the consciousness computation. How can
you store Bruno's film in such a universe?
Telmo.
On Sat, Nov 22, 2008 at 12:38 PM, Quentin Anciaux <allcolor.domain.name.hidden> wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> if you conserve MEC+MAT... then you conserve MEC, which means
> consciousness is a computational process (running on "real" hardware per
> MAT) but it is a computational process hence the process cannot rely on
> the entire universe because if it is then MEC should obviously be false
> unless the entire universe is also a computational process which then
> would render MAT useless. Don't you think ?
>
> Regards,
> Quentin
>
> Le samedi 22 novembre 2008 à 11:54 +0000, Telmo Menezes a écrit :
>> Bruno,
>>
>> Conserving MEC+MAT, one could argue that no isolation from the
>> environment is possible, even while dreaming. Even if you put Alice in
>> a sensory isolation tank, there is still the possibility that
>> interactions with the entire environment are an essential part of the
>> process that produces consciousness. For example, through quantum
>> entanglement. In the limit, there is the possibility that the entire
>> universe is necessary for her consciousness to arise, and the film
>> experiment becomes impossible because you would have to film the
>> entire sequence of states of the universe during her dream and play
>> them back. Obviously, the same universe where the dream takes place
>> cannot also contain the film (you get infinite recursion). I can't see
>> a way out of this in a single universe. What do you think?
>>
>> Cheers,
>> Telmo Menezes.
>>
>> On Fri, Nov 21, 2008 at 6:33 PM, Bruno Marchal <marchal.domain.name.hidden> wrote:
>> >
>> > MGA 2
>> >
>> >
>> > The second step of the MGA, consists in making a change to MGA 1 so
>> > that we don't have to introduce that unreasonable amount of cosmic
>> > luck, or of apparent randomness. It shows the "lucky" aspect of the
>> > coming information is not relevant. Jason thought on this sequel.
>> >
>> >
>> > Let us consider again Alice, which, as you know as an artificial
>> > brain, made of logic gates.
>> > Now Alice is sleeping, and doing a dream---like Carroll's original
>> > Alice.
>> >
>> > Today we know that a REM dream is a conscious experience, or better an
>> > experience of consciousness, thanks to the work of Hearne Laberge,
>> > Dement, etc.
>> > Malcolm's theory of dream, where dream are not conscious, has been
>> > properly refuted by Hearne and Laberge experiences. (All reference can
>> > be found in the bibliography of my "long thesis". Ask me if you have
>> > problem to find them.
>> >
>> > I am using a dream experience instead of an experience of awakeness
>> > for having less technical problems and being shorter on the relevant
>> > points. I let you do the change as an exercise if you want. If you
>> > have understood UDA up to the sixth step, such change are easy to do.
>> > To convince Brent Meeker, you will have to put the environment,
>> > actually its digital functional part in the "generalized brain",
>> > making the general setting much longer to describe. (If the part of
>> > the environment needed for consciousness to proceed is not Turing
>> > emulable, then you already negate MEC of course).
>> >
>> > The dream will facilitate the experience. It is known that in a REM
>> > dream we are paralyzed (no outputs), we are cut out from the
>> > environment: (no inputs, well not completely because you would not
>> > hear the awakening clock, but let us not care about this, or do the
>> > exercise above), ... and we are hallucinating: the dream is a natural
>> > sort of video game. It shows that the brain is at least a "natural"
>> > virtual reality generator. OK?
>> >
>> > Alice has already an artificial digital brain. This consists in a
>> > boolean tridimensional graph with nodes being NOR gates, and vertex
>> > being wires. For the MEC+MAT believer, the dream is produced by the
>> > physical activity of the "circular digital information processing"
>> > done by that boolean graph.
>> >
>> > With MEC, obviously all what matter is that the boolean graph
>> > processes the right computation, and we don't have to take into
>> > account the precise position of the gates in space. They are not
>> > relevant for the computation (if things like that were relevant we
>> > would already have said "no" to the doctor. So we can topologically
>> > deform Alice boolean graph brain and project it on a plane so that no
>> > gates overlap. Some wires will cross, but (exercise) the crossing of
>> > the wires function can itself be implemented with NOR gates. (A
>> > solution of that problem, posed by Dewdney, has been given in the
>> > Scientific American Journal (and is displayed in "Conscience et
>> > Mécanisme" with the reference).
>> >
>> > So Alice's brain can be made into a plane boolean graph.
>> >
>> > Also, a MEC+MAT believer should not insist on the electrical nature
>> > of the communication by wires, nor on the electrical nature of the
>> > processing of the information by the gates, so that we can use optical
>> > information instead. Laser beams play the role of the wires, and some
>> > destructive interference can be used for the NOR. The details are not
>> > relevant, given that I am not presenting a realist experiment (below,
>> > or later, if people harass me with too much engineering question, I
>> > will propose a completely different representation of the same (with
>> > respect to the relevance of the reasoning) situation, by using the
>> > even less realist Ned Block Chinese People Computer: it can be used
>> > for making clear no magic is used in what follows, with the price that
>> > its overall implementation is very unrealist, given that the neurons
>> > are the chinese willingly playing that role.
>> >
>> > So, now, we put Alice's brain, which has become a two dimensional
>> > optical boolean graph, in between two planes of transparent solid
>> > material, glass, and we add a sort of "clever" fluid cristal together
>> > with the graph,in between the glass plates. The fluid cristal is
>> > supposed to have the following peculiar property (which certainly is
>> > hard to implement concretely but which is possible in principle). Each
>> > time a beam of light trigs a line between two nodes, it trigs a laser
>> > beam in the "good" direction between the two optical gates, with the
>> > correct frequency-color (to keep right the functioning of the NOR).
>> >
>> > This works well, and we can let that brain work from time t1 to t2,
>> > where Alice dreams specifically, for fixing the matter, that she is in
>> > front of a mushroom, talking with a caterpillar who sits on the
>> > Muschroom (all right?). We have beforehand save the instantaneous
>> > state corresponding to the begining of that dream, so as to be able to
>> > repeat that precise graph activity.
>> >
>> > Each time we allow the graph doing the computation corresponding to
>> > the dream (which exists by MEC), the believer in MAT, who believes in
>> > the physical supervenience thesis, has to admit Alice is conscious, in
>> > the sense of having the experience of consciousness of her (non lucid)
>> > dream: she feels herself talking with a caterpillar for example.
>> >
>> >
>> > Now we film that active graph, with a high resolution camera.
>> >
>> > As you have most probably already guess, that film constitutes our
>> > home made "lucky cosmic explosion" generator, corresponding to Alice's
>> > dream experience.
>> >
>> > So let us suppose that poor Alice got, again, a not very good optical
>> > plane graph, so that some (1 to many to all, again) NOR gates break
>> > down, in that precise computation corresponding to her dream
>> > experience. And let us project, in real time, with the correct
>> > scaling, the movie we have made, on the graph, playing its role of a
>> > repeatable lucky rays generator.
>> >
>> > If Alice remains conscious in MGA 1, through MEC and MAT, Alice
>> > remains conscious in this setting too, all right?
>> >
>> > In the ALL gates broken case, we have really, *only a movie* of
>> > Alice's brain activity. Does consciousness arise from the projection
>> > of that movie?
>> >
>> > Should a believer in MEC+MAT believes that?
>> >
>> >
>> > Bruno
>> >
>> > http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > >
>> >
>>
>> >
> --
> All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.
>
>
> >
>
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Received on Sat Nov 22 2008 - 10:27:08 PST