On 9 Sep, 01:39, David Nyman <david.ny....domain.name.hidden> wrote:
> > 1. Computationalism in general associates that consciousness with a
> > specific comptuer programme, programme C let's say.
> > 2. Let us combine that with the further claim that programme C
> > causes cosnciousness, somehow leveraging the physical causality of the
> > hardware it is running on.
> > 3. A corrolary of that is that running programme C will always
> > cause the same effect.
> > 4. Running a programme on hardware is a physical process with
> > physical effects.
> > 5. It is in the nature of causality that the same kind of cause
> > produces the same kind of effects-- that is, causaliy attaches to
> > types not tokens.
> > 6. Running a programme on hardware will cause physical effects, and
> > these will be determined by the kind of physical hardware. (Valve
> > computers will generate heat, cogwheel computers will generate noise,
> > etc).
> > 7. Therefore, running programme C on different kinds of hardware
> > will not produce a uniform effect as required by 1.
> > 8. Programmes do not have a physical typology: they are not natural
> > kinds. In that sense they are abstract. (Arguably, that is not as
> > abstract as the square root of two, since they still have physical
> > tokens. There may be more than one kind or level of abstraction).
> > 9. Conclusion: even running programmes are not apt to cause
> > consciousness. They are still too abstract.
>
> What you say above seems pretty much in sympathy with the reductio
> arguments based on arbitrariness of implementation.
It is strictly an argument against the claim that
computation causes consciousness , as opposed
to the claim that mental states are identical to computational
states.
> As you say above "consciousness might depend on specific properties of
> hardware, of matter". If so, this would demand an explicitly physical
> theory of mind, and such a 'Searlian' project would consequently seek
> to associate a specific phenomenal state with specific physical
> events. But CTM is not engaged on such a project; in fact it entails
> the opposite conclusion: i.e. by stipulating its type-token identities
> purely functionally it requires that a homogeneous phenomenal state
> must somehow be associated with a teeming plurality of heterogeneous
> physical states.
It doesn't suggest that any mental state can be associated with any
phsycial
state.
It has been accused of overdoing Multiple Realisability, but MR
can be underdone as well.
> Various arguments - Olympia, MGA, the Chinese Room etc. - seek to
> expose the myriad physical implausibilities consequential on such
> implementation independence. But the root of all this is that CTM
> makes impossible at the outset any possibility of linking a phenomenal
> state to any unique, fully-explicated physical reduction.
That's probably a good thing. We want to be able to say that
two people with fine-grained differences in their brain structure
can both be (for instance) apprehensiveness.
> If nothing
> physical can in principle be ruled out as an explanation for
> experience,
That isn't an implication of CTM. CTM can regard computers as
a small subset of physical systems, and conscious computers as
a small subset of computers.
> no uniquely-justified physical explanation need - or in
> practice could - be explicated.
I don't think "unique justification" is a requirement
>The detailed implausibilities
> variously invoked all fall out of this.
> So if a physical theory of mind is what is needed, CTM would seem to
> fail even as a candidate because its arbitrariness with respect to
> physical realisation renders it incapable of grounding consciousness
> in any specific fundamental physical reduction.
MR is not complete arbitrariness.
> Indeed defences of
> functionalism against its various critics never cite any physical
> grounds for the plausibility of conscious supervenience on the
> physical composition of, say, the Chinese room, but focus instead on
> defending the functional relevance of various features of the
> experimental setup. Hence, without an explicitly physical, as opposed
> to functional, criterion for what counts as a 'physical' explanation,
> it is hard to see how CTM is compatible with any intelligible notion
> of materialism.
It is compatible with materialism because brains and computers
are material. If CTM had the implication that one material
system could realise more than one computation, then there
would be a conflict with the phsyical supervenience principle.
But CTM only has the implication that one computation
system could be realised more on more than one
material system.
>Indeed, its success could only be in direct
> opposition to the principles of materialist reductive theory.
I don't think that follows at all.
> Isn't
> that a reasonable conclusion?
>
> David
>
--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group.
To post to this group, send email to everything-list.domain.name.hidden
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscribe.domain.name.hidden
For more options, visit this group at
http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en
-~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
Received on Wed Sep 09 2009 - 10:58:27 PDT