From: Stathis Papaioannou (stathisp@gmail.com)
Date: Sun Mar 16 2008 - 18:51:04 MDT
On 17/03/2008, Mike Dougherty <msd001@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sun, Mar 16, 2008 at 5:52 AM, Stathis Papaioannou <stathisp@gmail.com> wrote:
> > No, I'm not being emulated by rocks, rocks and I are both being
> > emulated in Platonia. That I appear to conscious due to brain activity
>
>
> I have to ask, shouldn't it be that we are currently emulating what
> exists in Platonia? I may be needlessly pedantic about language
> usage, but I understand Platonia to be some concept of a thing's
> Truest existence and all implementations of that in other
> emulations/universes are local instances of the ideal form.
>
> I am interested in how a function that maps states could provide the
> perception of consciousness.
>
> Is there a measure of dimension to Platonia? ( I know it's a concept-
> if I don't ask, I won't know how you understand it)
My use of the term Platonia refers to mathematical Platonism, the idea
that mathematical truths are true independently of any particular
physical reality or any particular mind.
If you believe in functionalism, consciousness is thought to occur
when an appropriate abstract machine is physically implemented. But
there are problems in defining what counts as physical implementation,
as I have discussed: if we're not concerned about a computation being
recognisable or useful to an external observer, any computation could
be mapped onto any physical system; in the extreme case, any
computation could be mapped onto the null state. This suggests that
physical implementation is superfluous to that aspect of the
computation not contingent on an external observer. A Turing machine
that multiplies two numbers together does not need to be physically
implemented, with a real time and length dimension so that the tape
can run, for the Platonic concept "multiplication" to occur, although
it does need to be physically implemented so that the computation can
interact with the physical universe. Similarly, a Turing machine that
is conscious does not need to be physically implemented so that
"consciousness" can occur, although it does need to be physically
implemented so that the conscious computation can interact with the
physical universe. Consciousness is like the natural numbers or an
abstract square, essentially in the Platonic realm and only
contingently manifesting in the physical world.
The next step from the above follows when it is realised that there is
no reason to postulate a separate physical world at all: it can all be
simulated on the big abstract machine inPlatonia.
-- Stathis Papaioannou
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