Is my answer (patternism/mathematical monadism) separate from reductive functionalism? My view is that the algorithmic description of my brain is already phenomenologically conscious; physically evaluating it accesses these experiences but does not create them. I think the materialist view still holds that there is some sort of “secret fire” to things actually physically happening.
consciousness is a state, not a process. you can look at [a pattern of atoms] at one point in time and say “this is conscious”
whether something is conscious can be decided entirely on a level of abstraction above the physical (presumably the algorithmic level)
If so, this is separate from the description I’ve given in the survey, although I believe Eliezer never explicitly draws the state/process distinction in the sequences. It looks to me like an FR/panpsychism hybrid with the “state” from panpyschism but the “algorithmic description is what counts” from FR.
Sorta. Fully agreed with the second. I’m not sure I believe in a state-process distinction- I don’t think that if you randomly pulled a snapshot of a brain very much like mine out of a hat, that that snapshot would be phenomenologically conscious, though of course as per follow-the-improbability I wouldn’t expect you to actually do this. Rather, the pattern of “my brain, ie. subset <small number> of iteration <large number> of <grand unified theory of physics> is conscious.” Ie. I believe in state only inasmuch as it’s the output of a process; I’m not sure if state is even meaningful without process. But I don’t think that processes themselves have secret fire; I just think they’re a particular kind of state distinct from a memory dump of the universe.
(My theory of phenomenal selfhood is produced by a process biased against theories in exponential proportion to complexity...)
Still not sure if I understand this. I guess two things that confuse me about this
One, say the 1 to 10400 or whatever probability event happens and some random process by chance generates a snapshot of your brain. How does the universe know that this is not conscious?
Two, if you require process, what is the difference between this and FR? Is there any scenario where the distinction matters?
Good question. What my intuition says is “even if you have a snapshot at a certain point, if it was generated randomly, there is no way to get the next snapshot from it.” Though maybe it would be. If so, I think it’s not just conscious but me in every regard. - I don’t know if this is physically coherent, but if we imagine a process by which you can gain answers to every important question about the current state but very little information about the next state, then I don’t think this version of me would be conscious. - That said, if you can also query information about past states then I do feel I’ve been conscious up to that point. But again, I think it only seems that way because we’re hiding the improbability in the premise, so my standard answer would be “there is literally nothing you can do to convince me you actually rolled a 1 in 10^400 die, because if this is genuinely a snapshot of my actual brain, then the laws of physics that do explain its state as well will almost certainly be more a priori likely as a theory than a 1 in whatever gamble.” And I think that colors my perception of this scenario as well—on some level I don’t really buy that this was a random selection.
I think this is very similar to functional reductionism. I just don’t like the implication that the material reality is a necessary component. If you flip a bit on the other side of the planet, the effect on my consciousness is zero, so at the most the relevant volume of reality is a vanishing subset. It just so happens that this volume can be expressed as “the matter arranged so as to compute the function of my mind”, suggesting that this is the fundamental structure of note.
Is my answer (patternism/mathematical monadism) separate from reductive functionalism? My view is that the algorithmic description of my brain is already phenomenologically conscious; physically evaluating it accesses these experiences but does not create them. I think the materialist view still holds that there is some sort of “secret fire” to things actually physically happening.
(If not, just count me under red func.)
Tell me if this summary of that view is correct:
consciousness is a state, not a process. you can look at [a pattern of atoms] at one point in time and say “this is conscious”
whether something is conscious can be decided entirely on a level of abstraction above the physical (presumably the algorithmic level)
If so, this is separate from the description I’ve given in the survey, although I believe Eliezer never explicitly draws the state/process distinction in the sequences. It looks to me like an FR/panpsychism hybrid with the “state” from panpyschism but the “algorithmic description is what counts” from FR.
Sorta. Fully agreed with the second. I’m not sure I believe in a state-process distinction- I don’t think that if you randomly pulled a snapshot of a brain very much like mine out of a hat, that that snapshot would be phenomenologically conscious, though of course as per follow-the-improbability I wouldn’t expect you to actually do this. Rather, the pattern of “my brain, ie. subset <small number> of iteration <large number> of <grand unified theory of physics> is conscious.” Ie. I believe in state only inasmuch as it’s the output of a process; I’m not sure if state is even meaningful without process. But I don’t think that processes themselves have secret fire; I just think they’re a particular kind of state distinct from a memory dump of the universe.
(My theory of phenomenal selfhood is produced by a process biased against theories in exponential proportion to complexity...)
Still not sure if I understand this. I guess two things that confuse me about this
One, say the 1 to 10400 or whatever probability event happens and some random process by chance generates a snapshot of your brain. How does the universe know that this is not conscious?
Two, if you require process, what is the difference between this and FR? Is there any scenario where the distinction matters?
Good question. What my intuition says is “even if you have a snapshot at a certain point, if it was generated randomly, there is no way to get the next snapshot from it.” Though maybe it would be. If so, I think it’s not just conscious but me in every regard. - I don’t know if this is physically coherent, but if we imagine a process by which you can gain answers to every important question about the current state but very little information about the next state, then I don’t think this version of me would be conscious. - That said, if you can also query information about past states then I do feel I’ve been conscious up to that point. But again, I think it only seems that way because we’re hiding the improbability in the premise, so my standard answer would be “there is literally nothing you can do to convince me you actually rolled a 1 in 10^400 die, because if this is genuinely a snapshot of my actual brain, then the laws of physics that do explain its state as well will almost certainly be more a priori likely as a theory than a 1 in whatever gamble.” And I think that colors my perception of this scenario as well—on some level I don’t really buy that this was a random selection.
I think this is very similar to functional reductionism. I just don’t like the implication that the material reality is a necessary component. If you flip a bit on the other side of the planet, the effect on my consciousness is zero, so at the most the relevant volume of reality is a vanishing subset. It just so happens that this volume can be expressed as “the matter arranged so as to compute the function of my mind”, suggesting that this is the fundamental structure of note.