Hi Jesse,
On 30 Apr 2009, at 11:19, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>
> Search MGA 1, MGA 2, (and forget MGA 03 I don't like it) in the
> recent threads on this list. Or read the french versions in my two
> theses. Or wait I put my last paper on my web page.
> Let us see:
> http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list/search?hl=en&group=everything-list&q=MGA&qt_g=Search+this+group
>
It is more easy with this link:
http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list/browse_frm/thread/201ce36c784b2795/aa1e30fe5b731a40?hl=en&tvc=1&q=MGA#aa1e30fe5b731a40
Best,
Bruno
>
>>
>>
>> >If you believe that consciousness supervene on the physical
>> implementation, or even just one universal machine computation,
>> then you will associate consciousness to a description of that
>> computation.
>>
>> But why must I do that? Why can't I associate consciousness to a
>> causal structure in the real world that's isomorphic to the causal
>> structure of the computation, not just a passive description of the
>> computation?
>
>
>
>
> Because in a particular running what makes the structure causal can
> be physically inert. This means that if you attach consciousness to
> it, you are attaching consciousness to something abstract. No
> problem, both consciousness and computations seems to me abstract or
> immaterial at the start. But then, unless you introduce a physical
> selection principle (unrelated to the abstract computation), you
> have to attach consciousness on all abstract realization of the
> computation. The machine cannot know which computation (or which
> mathematical universal machine) implements its states, forcing to
> consider the whole abstract space of all computations, which
> fortunately makes sense (through Church thesis).
>
> Put in another way: a digital machine cannot distinguish between
> real, virtual or arithmetical. Unless magical power not present in
> the computations is introduced to select a reality.
>
>
>
>
>
>> Is there a fatal flaw in my suggestion about defining "causal
>> structure" in terms of propositions about events and the way
>> certain propositions logically imply others
>
>
>
> No fatal flaw. On the contrary, it is the good idea. I do this too.
> But then you cannot rely on particular "concrete things" to select
> one computations among all possible one. You already move to the
> abstract, or mathematical or logical. I just insist to push that
> idea to its ultimate consequence. The seemingly realness or
> concreteness will have to emerge from an infinity of absract, but
> well defined, computations. No Token, many Types. Token are types
> view from inside. Comp gives an indexical (self-referential) way to
> explain concrete token from abstract types.
>
>
>
>> (if you take into account the basic laws of whatever 'universe'
>> you're describing with these propositions, whether it's the laws of
>> physics in the real universe or the laws governing a cellular
>> automaton)?
>
>
>
> If you survive "qua computatio", you cannot make a consciousness
> singular in the absolute. A concrete machine (relatively concrete
> with respect to you) can be endowed with consciousness, but from its
> first person view, its future (and past, and reality) is determined
> by all sublevel computations that the machine cannot distinguish.
>
> If you attach an evolving mind to a cellular automaton states'
> sequence, you have to attach that same mind to all relative
> implementations of that sequence generated in the universal
> dovetailing, or in elementary arithmetic, and this change the
> prediction that the automaton can make about what it can find when
> it looks at himself or at his neighborhood below its substitution
> level. There are many consequence of this. For example you can
> deduce that whatever the physical universe is, it is not a classical
> cellular automaton, nor the result of any classical evolving
> system. At best, it could be a quantum cellular automaton, but even
> this should be deduced from a relative measure on *all* computations.
>
> I hope this can help, I am aware (and Maudlin is too as he told me a
> long time ago) that this point is a bit subtle and rarely well
> understood.
>
> Note that Maudlin concludes that there is a problem with comp, and I
> conclude there is a problem with the physical supervenience. We both
> agree that comp and physical supervenience are incompatible. I keep
> comp as my favorite working hypothesis, and so I attach
> consciousness, not to any implementation of a computation, but to
> all at once, and only through logical links at some level.
> When the computations differentiate up to the point the machine can
> tell the difference, consciousness bifurcate or differentiate. It
> remains to justify why the quantum computations seem to win the
> competition among all computations, but classical computer science
> gives clues that this could indeed be the case when we take the self-
> referential limitations explicitly into account (cf AUDA). This
> would prevent comp from solispisme: there would be a coherent notion
> of first person plural. There are also evidences from pure number
> theory.
>
> Feel free to criticize MGA, I appreciate (rational) critics by non
> person eliminativist researcher.
>
> Bruno
> http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
>
>
>
>
> >
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
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Received on Thu Apr 30 2009 - 12:52:48 PDT