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.
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.