On 01 Dec 2008, at 03:25, Russell Standish wrote:
>
> On Sun, Nov 30, 2008 at 07:10:43PM +0100, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>>>
>>> I am speaking as someone unconvinced that MGA2 implies an
>>> absurdity. MGA2 implies that the consciousness is supervening on the
>>> stationary film.
>>
>>
>> ? I could agree, but is this not absurd enough, given MEC and the
>> definition of the physical superveneience thesis;
>
> It is, prima facie, no more absurd than consciousness supervening on a
> block universe.
>
>>>
>>> A block universe is nondynamic by definition. But looked at another
>>> way, (ie from the inside) it is dynamic. It neatly illustrates why
>>> consciousness can supervene on a stationary film (because it is
>>> stationary when viewed from the inside).
>>
>> OK, but then you clearly change the physical supervenience thesis.
>>
>
> How so? The stationary film is a physical object, I would have
> thought.
I don't understand this. The physical supervenience thesis associate
consciousness AT (x,t) to a computational state AT (x,t). The idea is
that consciousness can be "created" in real time by the physical
"running" of a computation (viewed of not in a block universe).
With the stationary film, this does not make sense. Alice experience
of a dream is finite and short, the film lasts as long as you want. I
think I see what you are doing: you take the stationary film as an
incarnation of a computation in Platonia. In that sense you can
associate the platonic experience of Alice to it, but this is a
different physical supervenience thesis. And I argue that even this
cannot work, because the movie does not capture a computation. The
universal interpreter is lacking. It could even correspond to another
experience, if the graph was a movie of another sort of computer, for
example with NAND substituted for the NOR.
>
>
>>
>>> The "film", however does need
>>> to be sufficiently rich, and also needs to handle counterfactuals
>>> (unlike the usual sort of movie we see which has only one plot).
>>
>>
>> OK. Such a film could be said to be a computation. Of course you are
>> not talking about a stationary thing, which, be it physical or
>> immaterial, cannot handle counterfactuals.
>>
>
> If true, then a block universe could not represent the
> Multiverse. Maybe so, but I think a lot of people might be surprised
> at this one.
I am not sure I can give sense to an expression like "the multiverse"
or the "block universe" can or cannot handle counterfactuals. They
have no inputs, nor outputs.
Bruno
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
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Received on Mon Dec 01 2008 - 12:07:40 PST