Jason Resch wrote:
>
>
> On Sat, Nov 22, 2008 at 8:52 PM, Stathis Papaioannou <stathisp.domain.name.hidden
> <mailto:stathisp.domain.name.hidden>> wrote:
>
>
> 2008/11/23 Kory Heath <kory.domain.name.hidden <mailto:kory.domain.name.hidden.com>>:
>
> > If we apply the Conway's Life rule to all the cells, it seems
> like the
> > creatures in the grid ought to be conscious. If we don't apply the
> > Life rule to any of the cells, but just pull the data from our
> > previously-created lookup table, it seems like the creatures in the
> > grid are not conscious. But if we apply the Life rule to half of the
> > cells and pull the other half from the lookup table, there will
> > (probably) be some creature in the grid who has half of the cells in
> > its brain being computed by the Life rule, and half being pulled from
> > the lookup table. What's the status of this creature's consciousness?
>
> Which leads again to the problem of partial zombies. What is your
> objection to saying that the looked up computation is also conscious?
> How would that be inconsistent with observation, or lead to logical
> contradiction?
>
>
> I would side with Kory that a looked up recording of conscious activity
> is not conscious. My argument being that static information has no
> implicit meaning because there are an infinite number of ways a bit
> string can be interpreted. However in a running program the values of
> the bits do have implicit meaning according to the rules of the state
> machine.
But this static information is produced by a dynamic computation - so it can be
regarded as deriving its meaning from that computation. I don't see why that
implicit meaning shouldn't count.
Brent
>
> What makes this weird is that in one respect our universe might be
> considered a 4-d recording, containing a record of computations
> performed by neurons and brains across one of its dimensions. Perhaps
> this is further evidence in support of Bruno's theory: mind cannot exist
> in a physical universe because it is just a recording of a computation,
> and only the actual computation itself can create consciousness.
>
> Jason
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Received on Sat Nov 22 2008 - 23:58:24 PST