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Planck length, Planck time, and computation

Beth said:
I don't think p-zombies can exist. Likewise, I don't think a 100% accurate simulation can exist either. They are interesting thought experiments is all.




I think consciousness may well be consider a behavior. At some point in some previous thread, a poster referred to it as 'private behavior'. That prhase seems fairly apropos to me.
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Are you a radical behavioralist?
 
Beth said:
I meant, but did not phrase well, that I can be conscious without betraying any sign of it. So how do we define it in such as way as to be able to objectively tell when a machine is conscious?
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At the very least, the same way you tell if a comatose human is conscious:

1) find humans that you can observe being conscious, I.E. have a conversation with or otherwise interact with

2) Look at what their brain is doing

3) see if the comatose patient's brain is doing something similar

Now just replace "human" and "comatose" with "machine" and "non-objectively-responsive" or something.
 
Beth said:
No.
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If you don't agree that a 100% accurate simulation is possible in principle then there is no point in even participating in the simulation discussion, since I am pretty sure Pixy's whole apriori assumption is that it is possible.
 
rocketdodger said:
At the very least, the same way you tell if a comatose human is conscious:

1) find humans that you can observe being conscious, I.E. have a conversation with or otherwise interact with

2) Look at what their brain is doing

3) see if the comatose patient's brain is doing something similar

Now just replace "human" and "comatose" with "machine" and "non-objectively-responsive" or something.
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The problem is, I don't think we are able to reliably make that distinction with humans.

rocketdodger said:
If you don't agree that a 100% accurate simulation is possible in principle then there is no point in even participating in the simulation discussion, since I am pretty sure Pixy's whole apriori assumption is that it is possible.
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I enjoy it. That's the only point for me. I learn stuff about how other people think.
 
Beth said:
The problem is, I don't think we are able to reliably make that distinction with humans.
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I think it depends on what the goal is in the first place.

Typically when doctors examine the brain activity of a comatose patient, they are looking for just *something* that might suggest that person isn't a vegetable, or something like that. So yes it is entirely possible that the distinction between conscious thoughts and mush is difficult in those situations.

On the other hand, I think that if a normal person is dreaming in REM sleep, for example, that their brain is in a very different state from deep sleep and that it is fairly simple to see that difference objectively (with various brain activity measuring devices, etc ).

So in a "best case" scenario it should be fairly straightforward to confirm that a machine is conscious internally, assuming we have access to similar machines that display consciousness externally. In a worst case scenario it might be much more difficult.
 
rocketdodger said:
If you don't agree that a 100% accurate simulation is possible in principle then there is no point in even participating in the simulation discussion, since I am pretty sure Pixy's whole apriori assumption is that it is possible.
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It is an assumption, and the evidence is that a 100% accurate simulation of anything is not possible, since the universe as we know it is not computable.

The universe may be discreet and finite, but that is also not known for certain. The precise significance of the planck time and planck length are not fully understood.
 
westprog said:
It is an assumption, and the evidence is that a 100% accurate simulation of anything is not possible, since the universe as we know it is not computable.

The universe may be discreet and finite, but that is also not known for certain. The precise significance of the planck time and planck length are not fully understood.
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Well ... if a 100% accurate simulation were possible, would you agree that a 100% accurate simulation of a human brain, including input, body map, life experience, etc, would be conscious just like you and I?
 
rocketdodger said:
Well ... if a 100% accurate simulation were possible, would you agree that a 100% accurate simulation of a human brain, including input, body map, life experience, etc, would be conscious just like you and I?
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I'm 100% sure my answer would be yes, if your "100 % accurate simulation" is guaranteed to faithfully reproduce "the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth" with respect to the nature of our existence (if in fact we do both exist), including of course everything that we don't know yet about anything and everything, even if some that of may also be strictly unknowable and finally of course also including any unlikely but still possibly relevant effects from entities such as god(s) or invisible pink unicorns and so forth.

Disclaimer: I may have overlooked something in the previous paragraph, in which case I reserve the right to add or modify the statement in any way I see fit and at any point in time (whatever that is, or even if it doesn't exist). Similarly, any grammatical errors, spelling errors or other problems of that kind should not be interpreted as being contrary to my true beliefs (which I understand to be stored somewhere in my brain currently but also subject to revision and confusion from time to time).

PS: Did you really mean to say "you and I"?

:D
 
rocketdodger said:
Well ... if a 100% accurate simulation were possible, would you agree that a 100% accurate simulation of a human brain, including input, body map, life experience, etc, would be conscious just like you and I?
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No, of course not. A 100% perfect simulation of a power station would not generate electricity. A 100% perfect simulation of rain will not get you wet.

It's fairly clear that in any system where everything in it is effected by everything else, it's not possible to perfectly simulate any portion of the system within the system. In this case, the system is the universe, or at least a very high proportion of it.
 
westprog said:
No, of course not. A 100% perfect simulation of a power station would not generate electricity. A 100% perfect simulation of rain will not get you wet.
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I tried to simulate rain with a watering can the other day. It wasn't 100%, but it still managed to get the plants wet.
 
rocketdodger said:
Well ... if a 100% accurate simulation were possible, would you agree that a 100% accurate simulation of a human brain, including input, body map, life experience, etc, would be conscious just like you and I?
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Would you agree a 100% accurate simulation of a single celled animal is alive?
 
rocketdodger said:
Yes absolutely
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No.

It would a movie-like fiction running on a computer. Pebbles being moved in sand? I have no idea what that might be but alive isn't in the cards.

A similacrum built from scratch could be alive, and lots of single cell lifeforms are being built as we speak. Reality even knows how to make more consciousnesses of all levels of complexity.
 
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AlBell said:
No.

It would a movie-like fiction running on a computer. Pebbles being moved in sand? I have no idea what that might be but alive isn't in the cards.

A similacrum built from scratch could be alive, and lots of single cell lifeforms are being built as we speak. Reality even knows how to make more consciousnesses of all levels of complexity.
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That's the difference between an emulation - like a watering can - and a simulation - Turner painting a storm. Turner was a genius, but apart from half and hour after he'd painted it, the masterpiece wouldn't get you remotely damp. The watering can could.

The reason is that the watering can uses real water. It's not a very accurate or convincing representation of rain, but it will do something that even a hypothetical planck scale simulation of rain will never do.
 
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