Bishop responds that mere counterfactual sensitivity can’t make a difference to consciousness: surely it’s what actually happens to a system that matters, not what would have happened if things had gone differently
This is a false distinction if (as I believe) counterfactual sensitivity is part of what happens. For example, if what happens is that Y causes Z, then part of that is the counterfactual fact that if Y hadn’t happened then Z wouldn’t have happened. (Maybe this particular example can be nitpicked, but I hope that the fundamental point is made.)
Thus, there must be some sort of “fading qualia” process going on after all, unless either B1 is not conscious to begin with, or B2 is conscious after all.
If counterfactual sensitivity matters—and I think it does—then some sort of fading (I hesitate to call it “fading qualia” specifically—the whole brain is fading, in that its counterfactual sensitivity is gradually going kaput) is going on. And since the self is (by hypothesis) unable to witness what’s happening, then this demonstrates how extreme our corrigibility with regard to our own subjective experiences is. Not at all a surprising outcome.
I think that something like this must be the case. Especially considering the hypothesis that the brain is a dynamical system that requires rapid feedback among a wide variety counterfactual channels, even the type of calculation in Simplicio’s simulation model wouldn’t work. Note that this is not just because you don’t have enough time to simulate all the moves of the computer algorithm that produces the behavior. You have to be ready to mimic all the possible behaviors that could arise from a different set of inputs, in the same temporal order. I’m sure that somewhere along the way, linear methods of calculation such as your simulation attempts, must break down.
In other words, your simulation is just a dressed up version of the wind up system from a dynamical system point of view. The analogy runs like this: The simulation model is to the real consciousness what the wind-up model is to a simulation, in that it supports much fewer degrees of freedom. It seems that you have to have the right kind of hardware to support such processes, hardware that probably has criteria much closer to our biological, multilateral processing channels than a linear binary logic computer. Note that even though Turing machines supposedly can represent any kind of algorithm, they cannot support the type of counterfactual channels and especially feedback loops necessary for consciousness. The number of calculations necessary to recreate the physical process is probably beyond the linearly possible with such apparatuses.
Well, this bit seems wrong on Bishop’s part:
This is a false distinction if (as I believe) counterfactual sensitivity is part of what happens. For example, if what happens is that Y causes Z, then part of that is the counterfactual fact that if Y hadn’t happened then Z wouldn’t have happened. (Maybe this particular example can be nitpicked, but I hope that the fundamental point is made.)
If counterfactual sensitivity matters—and I think it does—then some sort of fading (I hesitate to call it “fading qualia” specifically—the whole brain is fading, in that its counterfactual sensitivity is gradually going kaput) is going on. And since the self is (by hypothesis) unable to witness what’s happening, then this demonstrates how extreme our corrigibility with regard to our own subjective experiences is. Not at all a surprising outcome.
I think that something like this must be the case. Especially considering the hypothesis that the brain is a dynamical system that requires rapid feedback among a wide variety counterfactual channels, even the type of calculation in Simplicio’s simulation model wouldn’t work. Note that this is not just because you don’t have enough time to simulate all the moves of the computer algorithm that produces the behavior. You have to be ready to mimic all the possible behaviors that could arise from a different set of inputs, in the same temporal order. I’m sure that somewhere along the way, linear methods of calculation such as your simulation attempts, must break down.
In other words, your simulation is just a dressed up version of the wind up system from a dynamical system point of view. The analogy runs like this: The simulation model is to the real consciousness what the wind-up model is to a simulation, in that it supports much fewer degrees of freedom. It seems that you have to have the right kind of hardware to support such processes, hardware that probably has criteria much closer to our biological, multilateral processing channels than a linear binary logic computer. Note that even though Turing machines supposedly can represent any kind of algorithm, they cannot support the type of counterfactual channels and especially feedback loops necessary for consciousness. The number of calculations necessary to recreate the physical process is probably beyond the linearly possible with such apparatuses.
Allenwang voted up—I don’t understand why there was a negative reaction to this.