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Explain consciousness to the layman.

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rocketdodger said:
But this is not true -- if the set of rules exactly corresponds to the same set of rules that our particles behave according to, then actual particles will be produced in the other worlds.
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This is the fundamental problem that underlies your absurd conclusions (ones which nevertheless do not dissuade you).

Rules by themselves do not (cannot) generate an actual instance of the system described by the rules.

And no pleading to the quantum realm can change that.

If you want a tomato, you have to grow one, you can't program one.
 
Piggy said:
Of course the simulation has effects. It's just that they are not related to the effects of tornadoes.

What's real when it comes to the simulation is the device running the sim and the person interpreting the output.

The "tornado" is a figment of the imagination of the observer. It does not exist in the world of matter and energy. Nor is some strange new world created by the simulation for it to exist in.
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The simulation of the tornado and the real tornado are related only in the mind of the person using the simulation. Considering the simulation as a standalone process, it has no connection with tornados at all.
 
rocketdodger said:
Ok lets try another approach piggy.

Assume you have a simulation, with a simulated tornado and a simulated house. The simulation is always running.

One night a tech looks at the screen and sees that the house is still standing.

The next morning he checks, and somehow the house is now destroyed, and the tornado is gone.

What happened?
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Simple... the symbols changed.

See how easy that is? No need to appeal to separate worlds beyond the physical universe or our imaginations.
 
rocketdodger said:
Just look at what you said, though -- that the notions of reality of the fundamental building blocks of our universe are irrelevant to the issue of whether or not a consciousness built from such fundamental blocks is real.

Doesn't that seem a bit inconsistent to you? To think you can discuss the reality of a consciousness without referencing the reality of the particles that make it up ?
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Not at all.

The unresolved problems we have in the subatomic realm are rarely relevant to our discussions of everyday life.

And besides, we know consciousness is a real phenomenon. That's not at issue.

The question is how the brain performs that phenomenon, and there's no reason to involve QM, at least as far as we know.
 
Piggy said:
This is the fundamental problem that underlies your absurd conclusions (ones which nevertheless do not dissuade you).

Rules by themselves do not (cannot) generate an actual instance of the system described by the rules.

And no pleading to the quantum realm can change that.

If you want a tomato, you have to grow one, you can't program one.
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And a person eating a tomato in a computer simulation does not consist of two seperate objects with a relation to each other. (And "object-oriented" programming doesn't change that at all). The computer changes state in a way which a person can interpret as someone eating a tomato. The entities and their interaction exist in the mind of the observer. They do not exist in the computer, as close examination of what is going on will quickly reveal.

In order to produce computer programs, you have to take a description - at its highest level, man eating tomato - and cause the computer to make state changes that will cause someone examining output from the computer to interpret what he sees as someone eating a tomato. The computer has no more experience of this than an envelope can read a letter.
 
westprog said:
The simulation of the tornado and the real tornado are related only in the mind of the person using the simulation. Considering the simulation as a standalone process, it has no connection with tornados at all.
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Exactly.

In the material frame of reference, there's a computer changing states. In the observer's imagination, there's a tornado changing states.

You know, whenever we get new blood on these threads, someone always chimes in and tells us that we must be misreading these guys, they can't possibly mean what they say about there being an actual "world of the simulation" to refer to independent of reality and imagination, that they can't possibly mean that symbolically representing a brain (either by running a computer sim or working out the calculations on paper) produces an actual instance of a brain, and so forth.

And yet they do. They mean what they say.
 
Piggy said:
But what is changing from state to state? I mean, really?

The computer is changing from state to state.

The computer is physically real.
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What is changing from state to state in our universe?

The computer running the simulation that is our universe is changing from state to state.

The computer that runs the simulation of our universe is physically real.
 
Piggy said:
The changing states of the computer are only related to changing states of rivers or tornadoes or epidemics symbolically, since the computer does not exhibit the qualities of those systems.
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If what is happening in the computer does not exhibit any of the qualities of the real systems, then how could it be a simulation?
 
westprog said:
By changing their state. Exactly as a computer does it. Of course the ocean's change of state is entirely useless and meaningless. So is a computer's change of state without interpretation by a person.
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Is a paramecium's change of state useless and meaningless without interpretation by a person?


Gotcha
 
Piggy said:
Rules by themselves do not (cannot) generate an actual instance of the system described by the rules.
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Unless all actual instances can be fully reduced to nothing but rules.

Piggy said:
And no pleading to the quantum realm can change that.
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Well, actually, it can. If physics is unable to determine that there is any actual material in the universe -- and it can't -- and instead all evidence points to the universe being nothing more than rules -- and it does -- then you are wrong and I am right.
 
Piggy said:
The question is how the brain performs that phenomenon, and there's no reason to involve QM, at least as far as we know.
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Typically there isn't, I agree.

However, you are the only monist on the entire forum that seems to dispute the notion that an arbitrary granularity simulation of a society of people, down to the particle level, would contain actual conscious entities.

You. Are. The. Only. One.

I am not trying to argue from authority here. I am just hoping that the fact that so many smart people disagree with you when they agree with each other, and furthermore that they are all fairly level headed monists, will at least convince you to open your mind a little and think about it.
 
rocketdodger said:
But this is not true -- if the set of rules exactly corresponds to the same set of rules that our particles behave according to, then actual particles will be produced in the other worlds.
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And I thought alchemy was history
 
rocketdodger said:
Well if you take lead, and do some stuff to it, and the result is a material that all objective measurements agree is gold, then I don't know what you can do other than accept it as gold.
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Luckily we know how gold is formed so we can tell whether lead can turn into gold.
Nice try though.
 
Piggy said:
Exactly.

In the material frame of reference, there's a computer changing states. In the observer's imagination, there's a tornado changing states.

You know, whenever we get new blood on these threads, someone always chimes in and tells us that we must be misreading these guys, they can't possibly mean what they say about there being an actual "world of the simulation" to refer to independent of reality and imagination, that they can't possibly mean that symbolically representing a brain (either by running a computer sim or working out the calculations on paper) produces an actual instance of a brain, and so forth.

And yet they do. They mean what they say.
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Especially odd - the people who believe in the reality of people living in virtual worlds are generally hardline materialists. Or think they are.
 
rocketdodger said:
Hearts take a very large set of external world states and map it to a very small set of internal states. That is a calculation, or a computation, or whatever you want to call it.

You can pretty much assume that any component of a living organism is based on such a principle, since that is what makes life ... life.
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I was under the impression (apparently mistaken) that impulse -> beat, and that this was all the heart did. I don't remember my heart doing anything but beating at regular intervals.

When I hit a rock with a hammer, the impact translates into smaller internal states as well, but saying a rock computers makes the word a bit useless.
 
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