The argument presented by Aaronson is that, since it would take as much computation to convert the rock/waterfall computation into a usable computation as it would be to just do the usable computation directly, the rock/waterfall isn’t really doing the computation.
I find this argument unconvincing, as we are talking about a possible internal property here, and not about the external relation with the rest of the world (which we already agree is useless).
You disagree with Aaronson that the location of the complexity is in the interpreter, or you disagree that it matters?
In the first case, I’ll defer to him as the expert. But in the second, the complexity is an internal property of the system! (And it’s a property in a sense stronger than almost anything we talk about in philosophy; it’s not just a property of the world around us, because as Gödel and others showed, complexity is a necessary fact about the nature of mathematics!)
The interpreter, if it would exist, would have complexity. The useless unconnected calculation in the waterfall/rock, which could be but isn’t usually interpreted, also has complexity.
Your/Aaronson’s claim is that only the fully connected, sensibly interacting calculation matters. I agree that this calculation is important—it’s the only type we should probably consider from a moral standpoint, for example. And the complexity of that calculation certainly seems to be located in the interpreter, not in the rock/waterfall.
But in order to claim that only the externally connected calculation has conscious experience, we would need to have it be the case that these connections are essential to the internal conscious experience even in the “normal” case—and that to me is a strange claim! I find it more natural to assume that there are many internal experiences, but only some interact with the world in a sensible way.
The argument presented by Aaronson is that, since it would take as much computation to convert the rock/waterfall computation into a usable computation as it would be to just do the usable computation directly, the rock/waterfall isn’t really doing the computation.
I find this argument unconvincing, as we are talking about a possible internal property here, and not about the external relation with the rest of the world (which we already agree is useless).
(edit: whoops missed an ‘un’ in “unconvincing”)
You disagree with Aaronson that the location of the complexity is in the interpreter, or you disagree that it matters?
In the first case, I’ll defer to him as the expert. But in the second, the complexity is an internal property of the system! (And it’s a property in a sense stronger than almost anything we talk about in philosophy; it’s not just a property of the world around us, because as Gödel and others showed, complexity is a necessary fact about the nature of mathematics!)
The interpreter, if it would exist, would have complexity. The useless unconnected calculation in the waterfall/rock, which could be but isn’t usually interpreted, also has complexity.
Your/Aaronson’s claim is that only the fully connected, sensibly interacting calculation matters. I agree that this calculation is important—it’s the only type we should probably consider from a moral standpoint, for example. And the complexity of that calculation certainly seems to be located in the interpreter, not in the rock/waterfall.
But in order to claim that only the externally connected calculation has conscious experience, we would need to have it be the case that these connections are essential to the internal conscious experience even in the “normal” case—and that to me is a strange claim! I find it more natural to assume that there are many internal experiences, but only some interact with the world in a sensible way.