My take on why indeed the study of consciousness may not be as simple

[westprog]

I am just a little taken aback by the unshakeable certainty with which the view is held.

And the unshakeable certainty that if you don't believe in this strange, mystical world where shuffling cards creates human beings, you believe in magic. If you think that you live in a real, material world rather than some kind of simulation, then you aren't a materialist.

 

[Robin]

It's apparent motion. The dot sweeps across the moon faster than light - but the dot only exists in your mind. There are different photons, travelling at the speed of light, striking the moon and returning to your eye. No thing is moving across the face of the moon.

More importantly, no information is, or can be, transmitted faster than light. That dot cannot carry information across the moon. It can only carry information from your laser cannon to the moon.

But even the apparent motion would be at most 2.8 million metres per second.

I don't think you could make a laser dot move across the face of the moon at an apparent speed any faster than that.

I suppose that if you were to point a dot at the moon, then turn the laser around 180 degrees and point it at an equidistant satellite in that direction the apparent speed would be about twice the speed of light, but of course that would be nonsense anyway, as you say the light would have travelled no further than from the laser to the satellite.

 

[PixyMisa]

I will have to think about that one. Doesn't sound right. How fast does the light have to travel from the pointer to the moon for the dot to travel faster than light?

The light travels at the speed of light, of course.

But the Moon is about 240,000 miles away, and it's, um, 2100 miles across. Okay, so we'll have to vibrate the laser rather than just waggling it, or choose a larger target, but the point is the same. We can shake our laser at 50Hz, which will have the spot of light zipping back and forth across the surface of the Moon at an average of 210,000 miles per hour second - easily faster than the speed of light.

Lots of things move faster than the speed of light, they just don't carry information.

I see my left and my right hand.

My consciousness seems pretty collated to me.

Sure. Absolutely. Because it's all been pre-calculated. You can do that, no problem, without ever violating relativity.

Back to yy2bggggs's example. Say I'm on Epsilon Eridani IV with my great-grand-daughter, tending our planarian plantation, and you're here on Earth. You send me an email saying "Hey, Pixy, what's the server password? I can't find it anywhere!"

And then, five minutes later, you get an email saying "Hi Robin. The server password is scoobiesnax."

Violation of relativity? No. I just realised that I hadn't told you the password and sent it to you, years before I ever saw your message.

And of course, if you plan it out in advance, there's no limit to the sort of tricks you can play. But none of it transfers information faster than light.

So the information moves faster than light - by what mechanism was that?

That's just it. The information doesn't move faster than light. It doesn't need to.

What you can't do with your compartmented consciousness is do anything that hasn't been pre-calculated without running smack into the lightspeed barrier. If I inject a signal into your primary visual cortex (currently orbiting Sirius B) that says "WHAT IS 2 + 2?", then that has to be encoded and transmitted out to your prestriate cortex six light years away, and that's going to take six years. And then it has to move on to the other areas involved in visual perception, taking more years, and then to the areas involved in higher cognition, taking more years, then onto the speech areas of the brain, taking still more years.

Pre-calculating everything allows the appearance of cheating relativity, but you can't actually cheat - you can't do anything new, only play back the recording.

 

[PixyMisa]

Oh, yeah, the point of using the moon here is that the angle we need to waggle the laser across is only half a degree (I went and calculated it, then realised that I already knew that the Moon was half a degree wide as seen from Earth). Much easier to waggle half a degree at 50Hz than, say, 30 degrees.

 

[cyborg]

I rarely agree with Malerin, but when someone suggests that I can't tell whether or not I am a p-zombie in denial...

How do you tell?

 

[yy2bggggs]

Oh let's not, you take umpteen words and still don't answer the question, you just ignore it.

Just humor me. Read the post in the forum, not in the edit box of the Reply. While you're at it, read this post in the forum too.

Firstly there is no broadcast, how is the consciousness transmitted?

Can we have a bit of focus please, Robin? I've been repetitively claiming that I'm not addressing consciousness, but the flow of information. But even ignoring this, transmitting consciousness, assuming it's possible at all, isn't per se going to violate the laws of SR or GR.

Let's start here. You claimed that something violated the laws of physics. Can you get a bit more specific about the thing that violates the laws of physics?

The theory of relativity, by the way:

• Does not deal with consciousness
• But does deal with information, under the guise of locality
• Does not have absolute time metrics--so, e.g., your cesium clocks might measure different times.
• Does not have absolute simultaneity metrics

Now let's unwind. You said:

Based on their clocks they start running the calculations again in the same order, call this Run4

Note your phrase "in the same order". We need to define what that means--see the fourth bullet. The fact that you set up cesium clocks on each spaceship, in itself, doesn't help us--see the third bullet.

Simultaneity, under relativity, is canonically addressed using the transfer of signals traveling at c--refer to the first and second bullets.

So if you're going to assert that there is a violation of the laws of physics, due to information traveling at the speed of light, I want to know exactly which beam of light, transmitted at which event, beats which flow of information.

In my Run4 analog, I'm attempting to use a signal--the radio broadcast--and a reference frame--you--to establish a well defined ordering of the signals. The ships are two light years away from each other, and it takes seconds to hear the full sentence, so there should be no problem with saying that the two ships cannot communicate with each other in the span of those seconds.

But there's also no problem that the second ship can have the correct completion of a sentence started by the first ship, unless you can show me where exactly faster-than-c communication would have occurred.

Secondly, are you saying that the consciousnes finally comes together 20-50 years after the run has completed????

No. I'm saying that I don't see the violation in the laws of physics by having two pre-programmed responses trigger two light years away from each other in such a way that they occur "in order" with respect to you, the observer. And that is exactly the scenario that I think you have on Run4, be it playing back an algorithm, consciousness, or successive frames of Paul's horse running.

 

[westprog]

The "subjective" part is superflous - one only needs worry about the "experience" part.

I prefer to include "subjective" to indicate that the experience is only available to the experiencer. Otherwise we can talk about an electron "experiencing" the presence of a proton. "Subjective" may be redundant, but it's a useful reminder.

 

[cyborg]

Lots of things move faster than the speed of light, they just don't carry information.

Actually this is a good example of an illusion - there is nothing moving "across" the surface of the moon.

There is a stream of photons moving towards the moon - perceiving the reflections of the photons striking it as an object moving across the moon leads to the apparant FTL.

 

[westprog]

How do you tell?

I know that I am because I am having subjective experiences. Indeed, the subjective experiences are the only thing I can really be certain of. I don't know if someone else has subjective experiences, because I've no way of testing that for certain.

 

[cyborg]

Otherwise we can talk about an electron "experiencing" the presence of a proton.

I fail to see how the word "subjective" prevents that.

The electron has a subjective experience. Show me that it does not.

 

[PixyMisa]

How do you tell?

I'm not sure it's worthwhile arguing this point. Yes, if you were a p-zombie you would be convinced you weren't p-zombie, but that's where the very concept begins to break down. You can't know you're not a p-zombie, but then the definition of p-zombies is logically inconsistent, so you can't be a p-zombie anyway.

 

[Robin]

Lots of things move faster than the speed of light, they just don't carry information.

Hmm... So we are back to the relativity violation.

Sure. Absolutely. Because it's all been pre-calculated. You can do that, no problem, without ever violating relativity.

But even my consciousness had been pre-calculated it, I am seeing it all at once right now.

What is the mechanism that I would be seeing information that was light years apart on a program that completes in nine months.

As I say, I can hold up my left hand and my right hand and I am seeing them at the same time.

Back to yy2bggggs's example. Say I'm on Epsilon Eridani IV with my great-grand-daughter, tending our planarian plantation, and you're here on Earth. You send me an email saying "Hey, Pixy, what's the server password? I can't find it anywhere!"

And then, five minutes later, you get an email saying "Hi Robin. The server password is scoobiesnax."

Violation of relativity? No. I just realised that I hadn't told you the password and sent it to you, years before I ever saw your message.

But you didn't answer the question I had for him. Are you suggesting that the program completes and then 50-100 years after it completes the consciousness emerges?


And remember the devices are unconnected, so by what definition is it coming together?

 

[PixyMisa]

Actually this is a good example of an illusion - there is nothing moving "across" the surface of the moon.

There is a stream of photons moving towards the moon - perceiving the reflections of the photons striking it as an object moving across the moon leads to the apparant FTL.

Yep, very good point. Astronomers have observed such illusions occuring naturally.

 

[westprog]

Actually this is a good example of an illusion - there is nothing moving "across" the surface of the moon.

There is a stream of photons moving towards the moon - perceiving the reflections of the photons striking it as an object moving across the moon leads to the apparant FTL.

And the illusion only takes place in a conscious mind.

 

[cyborg]

And the illusion only takes place in a conscious mind.

I don't know WTF that means.

The illusion is created when one incorrectly interprets the information given.

Namely one is incorrectly interpreting a series of light points over time as being the reflection of a single object whereas they are actually independent of each other. Making such a decision is clearly algorithmic.

 

[PixyMisa]

Hmm... So we are back to the relativity violation.

What? No, not in the slightest. Read what cyborg just said, that might help.

But even my consciousness had been pre-calculated it, I am seeing it all at once right now.

No you're not. In fact, "all at once" isn't even defined for you.

What is the mechanism that I would be seeing information that was light years apart on a program that completes in nine months

There is no such mechanism, because that's not what happens.

But you didn't answer the question I had for him. Are you suggesting that the program completes and then 50-100 years after it completes the consciousness emerges?

What does it matter? This is really just word-play.

As soon as you go from replaying the recording - which you can always set up in advance, for consciousness or conversation or any such thing, to give the illusion of relativity violation or indeed causality violation - as soon as you go beyond replaying the recording and start trying to interact with the Universe, as soon as we apply any test that is possible, even in principle, to determine whether you are conscious, wham, speed-of-light-delays out the wazoo.

Back to my password example, only this time you check the timestamps on your email and realise that my "reply" arrived five minutes before you sent your question.

Do I have a time machine now? No, not at all. It means nothing; it's just a parlour trick. And if we had planned it in advance, like your pre-recorded consciousness, not only would it not be a violation of the laws of physics, it wouldn't even be a coincidence.

 

[Belz...]

When we are conscious we have experiences, and those experiences are are made up of a wide range and combination of subjective qualities.

Are they ?

You're kidding, right...? -_-

I'm dead serious.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

How am I looking at two hands, the information for which is light years away from each other with no physical pathway?

Each probe has all the inputs necessary for that step in the algorithm. At least, that's how I take this whole thing to work.

As long as each brain has sufficient connected information for an experiencable time slice then no problem.

There is no problem then of taking these brains light years apart - I could be that because there is sufficient information with a physical pathway in each slice of time.

As I said I cannot tell at any moment if this was the first moment I existed and will be the last.

Actually, I'm having a real problem with this brain replication idea. See below.

The problem with Run4 is that there is not even enough information for a single time slice in any one probe.

I thought the idea was that each probe has all the inputs it needs to execute its step.

~~ Paul

 

[Belz...]

Each cell of memory is set up so that it can never affect another cell of memory. Never ever. Most of the components of a computer are carefully built in order that nothing of their state can be accessible to another part. The ways in which the components can effect other components are extremely limited.

Compare this with the cheerful anarchy of a bucket of water, where any molecule can go anywhere and exchange information with any other molecule. Why isn't that self-referential?

Honestly, I have no idea what you're arguing.

1. Computer programs often "bleed" into one another because of some glitch or another. So much for isolation.

2. What does a bucket of water have to do with self-reference ?

 

[Robin]

Just humor me. Read the post in the forum, not in the edit box of the Reply.

I did, but it is too ponderous and confused for me to spend any more time over it right now. At least now I understand what you mean by "before the dash", the rest of it, well it will take a bit of decoding.

As I say, others have understood what I meant by Run3 so I know that it is your problem that you don't understand it.

But there's also no problem that the second ship can have the correct completion of a sentence started by the first ship, unless you can show me where exactly faster-than-c communication would have occurred.

In my conscious experience. Unless my conscious experience is happening 50-100 years after the mechanism that created it had completed it's last step then all this stuff I am seeing right now would have to have come together faster than the speed of light if I am Run4.

No.

So you are saying that the consciousness could have occurred within the the completion time of the algorithm.

I'm saying that I don't see the violation in the laws of physics by having two pre-programmed responses trigger two light years away from each other in such a way that they occur "in order" with respect to you, the observer.

But I am not the observer - I am the conscious mind that it is creating. So I am asking, does that conscious mind appear 50-100 years after the program has completed running?

And you are ignoring the main problem I put, that the modules are unconnected. So even if they are just scattered around the Earth there is still a problem.

By what mechanism am I having this conscious experience if the mechanism of my brain is in millions of unconnected parts?