CryoNet #32918 - #32919

CryoNet - Sun 10 Oct 2010

    #32918: Simulation and Consciousness [Mike Perry]
    #32919: Consciousness [Jonano]

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Message #32918
Date: Sat, 09 Oct 2010 02:56:31 -0700
From: Mike Perry <[email protected]>
Subject: Simulation and Consciousness
References: <[email protected]>

At 02:00 2010-10-08, [email protected] wrote:
>[...]
>Reason 3. Time intervals in the computer and in  life.
>
>[...]
>
>Now, assume the original lives on, while his simulation is being run on the
>  computer. The simulation "lives" like a film with frames at non-zero
>intervals.  The original lives in some fashion not presently 
>understood--possibly
>in a  continuous fashion with no gaps, or possibly
>jumping each time to an appreciably different state with nothing in
>between. Even in the latter case, however, it is exceedingly 
>unlikely that the
>intervals between successive states would be the same for the 
>original and for
>  the simulation. Hence, it seems to me, the simulation cannot be faithful
>to the  original. Again, we can't know yet how important the differences may
>be, but  there will surely be differences.
>

Any attempt to have two copies of a person running in parallel would 
surely diverge very quickly. This would also hold if you just had two 
meat copies. In effect you would get two individuals with a common 
past--that's how I view it. Each of the copies would be a legitimate 
continuer of the one original, on more-or-less equal footing. On the 
other hand, if a person could be simulated in a classical computer it 
would open the possibility that two such computers could run in 
lockstep and thus behave exactly the same. A question can be raised 
whether this sort of thing will be possible to a classical computer, 
in any practical sense. (The time requirement may be too great.) I 
think the answer presently is unknown. A quantum computer uses 
unpredictability in an essential way and would not repeat its 
behavior exactly on successive runs.

Robert Ettinger also says:

>My question is not whether a simulation could be "intelligent" but whether
>it could have feeling or life-as-we-know-it. This is not a matter of
>accuracy of  simulation, but whether a mere collection of symbols can have
>consciousness. It  seems very clear to me that it cannot.

A computer when running looks pretty much like any other piece of 
matter at the subatomic level. So how do you decide it definitely has 
no consciousness but some other type of device, a meat brain, say, 
definitely does, if both are doing similar things? One possibility is 
that unpredictability will turn out to be essential for efficient 
operation. In that case you won't have the same "manipulation of 
symbols" as in present-day computers, even though the process would 
still be "computational" in some sense. Perhaps, then, both the 
uploaders and their opponents will feel somewhat vindicated.

MP

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Message #32919
Date: Sat, 9 Oct 2010 14:01:04 -0400
Subject: Consciousness
From: Jonano <[email protected]>

I think we need to understand alot more this area of philosophy and
neuroscience:

Consciousness.

I see consciousness as a "radio thing", when you put the radio with
good waves, you hear the music, but if you put the radio in space, you
lost signals.

Consciousness is a 2 things process, brain + reality = consciousness,
if one of them is missing, then there is no consciousness. Maybe if we
change the kind of brain, it won't graps reality as a normal brain.

I also dont believe in duality (spirit/body), I am a materialist, and
I think ideas are a material thing, like a virus transmitted with
education, voices or books/writings. Which make ideas much more
fragile but as necessary/important to our development as our brains
but acquired differently.

--Jon

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