Stathis,
common sense, not always applicable to math-related topics
is startled before a task on a REGULAR contraption-type Turing machine
(binary, electrically driven finite hardware etc.) can emulate ALL the
potentials of 11+billion neurons in unrestricted groupings and unlimited
connectivities as to the complexity of all the codes/details
(un!)imaginable.
(Maybe if you change to Bruno's infinite Loebian vs. Turing machine...?? I
doubt if you can do that, since there are different brains (eg for genetical
etc. reasons) and I cannot figure so many (although limited number)
variables in the 'unrestricted' (all encompassing?) Loebian machines.)
*
To Brent's remark:
The 'sequence vs. time' is not trivial, it has its intricacies: considering
an 'open' time-scale your 'sequence' may follow up some sequencing steps in
nanosecs, others in lightyears. Principally it is all 'time', yet no
time-systemic temporality.
*
Spacetime is harder: the hard-problem (thought) part works easily in
a_temporal - a_spatial conditions where sequence IS yet included,
however spatial restrictions much less. E.g. plunging into the
inter-universe teleporting it is hard to figure out spatial conditions
'between' universes. How far is U3 from U145? Does Multiverse have a
space-system?
*
Ccness? what type? I find even Bruno's version restricted, although my
version (response to infirmation) is applicable in computing, I just figure
more planes than just Platonic (i.e. numerical? math?) objects.
John
On Tue, Jan 13, 2009 at 6:49 AM, Stathis Papaioannou <stathisp.domain.name.hidden>wrote:
>
> 2009/1/13 Brent Meeker <meekerdb.domain.name.hidden>:
>
> > In human consciousness, as instantiated by brains, there is a process in
> which
> > signal/information is not local, it is distributed in spacetime and is
> connected
> > causally which means, per relativity, that you cannot make any unique
> spacelike
> > snapshot and label it "the state". I don't go so far as to claim that
> > consciousness *must be* instantiated in this way, but I think there must
> be
> > something that makes the "states" part of a process - not just snapshots.
> Bruno
> > gets around the problem of defining states by assuming a digital Turing
> like
> > process, but then he has to provide something besides spacetime to make
> the set
> > of states a sequence; which is he does by invoking the requirement that
> they be
> > a computation. I have some doubts as to whether this is enough, but at
> least it
> > is something.
>
> It comes down to whether the brain is Turing emulable. If it is, then
> I see no problem describing it in terms of a sequence of discrete
> states. The question then arises whether the causal links between the
> states in an intact digital computer are necessary to give rise to
> consciousness, which is what I thought you were claiming, or whether
> the same states in disconnected fashion would achieve the same thing.
> Opponents of computationalism such as John Searle have argued that if
> a Turing machine can give rise to consciousness then the disconnected
> states would also have to give rise to consciousness, which is then
> taken as a reductio against computationalism. The alternative way,
> saving computationalism, is, I think, Bruno's: it isn't the physical
> states giving rise to consciousness, but the computation as Platonic
> object.
>
>
> --
> Stathis Papaioannou
>
> >
>
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Received on Tue Jan 13 2009 - 14:51:14 PST