Bruno,
I am a bit confused. To me, you said
>Or, you are weakening the physical supervenience
> thesis by appeal to a notion of causality which seems to me a bit
> magical, and contrary to the local functionalism of the
> computationalist.
This seems to say that the version of MAT that MGA is targeted at does
not include causal requirements.
To Günther, you said:
>> Do you have different definition for MAT? Do you require causal
>> dynamics
>> for MAT?
>
>
> MAT is very general, but indeed it requires the minimum amount of
> causality so that we can implement a computation in the physical
> world, if not I don't see how we could talk on physical supervenience.
Does the MAT you are talking about include causal requirements or not?
About your other questions--
> OK, so now you have to disagree with MGA 1. No problem. But would you
> still say "yes" to the mechanist doctor? I don't see how, because now
> you appeal to something rather magic like influence in real time of
> inactive material.
So long as that "inert" material preserves the correct
counterfactuals, everything is fine. The only reason things seem
strange with olympized Alice is because *normally* we do not know in
advance which path cause and effect will take for something as
intricate as a conscious entity. The air bags in a car are "inert" in
the same way-- many cars never get in a crash, so the air bags remain
unused. But since we don't know that ahead of time, we want the air
bags. Similarly, when talking to the mechanist doctor, I will not be
convinced that a recording will suffice...
> The real question I have to ask to you, Günther and others is this
> one: does your new supervenience thesis forced the UD to be
> physically executed in a "real" universe to get the UDA conclusion?
Yes.
> Does MGA, even just as a refutation of "naïve mat" eliminate the use
> of the concrete UD in UDA?
No.
(By the way, I have read UDA now, but have refrained from posting a
commentary since there has been a great deal of discussion about it on
this list and I could just be repeating the comments of others...)
Also: Günther mentioned "SMAT", which actually sounds like the "CMAT"
I proposed... so I'll refer to it as SMAT from now on.
--Abram
On Tue, Dec 2, 2008 at 12:18 PM, Bruno Marchal <marchal.domain.name.hidden> wrote:
>
>
> On 02 Dec 2008, at 01:05, Abram Demski wrote:
>
>>
>> Bruno,
>>
>> It sounds like what you are saying in this reply is that my version of
>> COMP+MAT is consistent, but counter to your intuition (because you
>> cannot see how consciousness could be attached to physical stuff).
>
> I have no problem a priori in attaching consciousness to physical
> stuff. I do have problem when MEC + MAT forces me to attach
> consciousness to an empty machine (with no physical activity) together
> with inert material.
>
>
>
>
>> If
>> this is the case, then it sounds like MGA only works for specific
>> versions of MAT-- say, versions of MAT that claim consciousness hinges
>> only on the matter, not on the causal relationships.
>
> On the contrary. I want consciousness related to the causal
> relationship. But with MEC the causal relationship are in the
> computations. The thought experiment shows that the physical
> implementation plays the role of making them able to manifest
> relatively to us, but are not responsible for their existence.
>
>
>> In other words,
>> what Günther called NMAT. So you need a different argument against--
>> let's call it CMAT, for causal MAT. The olympization argument only
>> works if COMP+CMAT can be shown to imply the removability of inert
>> matter... which I don't think it can, because that inert matter here
>> has a causal role to play in the counterfactuals, and is therefore
>> essential to the physical computation.
>
> OK, so now you have to disagree with MGA 1. No problem. But would you
> still say "yes" to the mechanist doctor? I don't see how, because now
> you appeal to something rather magic like influence in real time of
> inactive material. Or, you are weakening the physical supervenience
> thesis by appeal to a notion of causality which seems to me a bit
> magical, and contrary to the local functionalism of the
> computationalist.
>
> The real question I have to ask to you, Günther and others is this
> one: does your new supervenience thesis forced the UD to be
> physically executed in a "real" universe to get the UDA conclusion?
> Does MGA, even just as a refutation of "naïve mat" eliminate the use
> of the concrete UD in UDA?
>
> It is true that by weakening MEC or MAT, the reasoning doesn't go
> through, but it seems to me the conclusion goes with any primitive
> stuff view of MAT or Matter activity to which we could attach
> consciousness through "causal" links. Once you begin to define matter
> through causal links, and this keeping comp, and linking the
> experience to those causal relation, perhaps made in other time at
> other occasion, you are not a long way from the comp supervenience.
> But if you don't see this, I guess the conversation will continue.
>
> Bruno
>
> http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
>
>
>
>
> >
>
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Received on Tue Dec 02 2008 - 14:33:44 PST