From: Bradley Thomas (brad36@gmail.com)
Date: Wed Dec 02 2009 - 19:34:55 MST
>Divergence would not occur if there is no outside input, i.e. if there is a
self-contained virtual environment. The Universe could be an example of
this. It wouldn't matter if the two computers were not running in parallel
as long as they ran the same program. I would not mind if my program is
terminated today if I could be sure that it would run again at some future
time, since I would experience no gap in consciousness; nor would I be aware
from inside the program of any change in processor speed.
The example of the Universe you give is interesting but I don't think it is
analagous because by definition the Universe is not dependent on its
environment. Every conscioussnes that we can conceive of, is. Even if we
stretch our definition of consciousness to include these systems without
input, no real system is immune to the effects of the environment... E.g.
cosmic rays, quantum effects etc. There are going to be perturbations.
But lets even assume that we can somehow prevent that (with shielding for
example). You're saying that it is ok they run at different speeds. But if
we have two essentially identical intelligent agents, lets call them Forex
Trading Black Boxes A and B, similar in every way except that B is
ever-so-slightly faster, clearly B has an advantage.
Even if we assume that these two programs can eternally run the exact same
code-sequence, they still differ in their respective performance. This is
why again I make the point that I don't think it makes sense to say the
identity resides purely in the code. The physical implementation makes a
difference. To outside observers, these implementations display different
behaviour. These agents have different personalities. If my brain ran at
double speed, people would notice the difference. I'd be some kind of
superhero or at least I would drive my wife nuts twice as often.
Brad Thomas
www.bradleythomas.com
Twitter @bradleymthomas, @instansa
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-sl4@sl4.org [mailto:owner-sl4@sl4.org] On Behalf Of Stathis
Papaioannou
Sent: Wednesday, December 02, 2009 8:07 PM
To: sl4@sl4.org
Subject: Re: [sl4] Uploading (was : goals of AI)
2009/12/3 Bradley Thomas <brad36@gmail.com>:
>>A computer program running on two machines in parallel could produce
>>two
> streams of consciousness in lockstep.
>
> Nice idea in theory but in practice this set-up is out of lockstep
> almost immediately since no two processors run at exactly the same
> speed. That's not to mention that as soon as you introduce input
> (necessary for a
> consciousness) then the systems differ substantially in their exposure to
> external entropy. Divergence may not be huge to begin with but any
> divergence is sufficient to show that they are not the same consciousness.
Divergence would not occur if there is no outside input, i.e. if there is a
self-contained virtual environment. The Universe could be an example of
this. It wouldn't matter if the two computers were not running in parallel
as long as they ran the same program. I would not mind if my program is
terminated today if I could be sure that it would run again at some future
time, since I would experience no gap in consciousness; nor would I be aware
from inside the program of any change in processor speed.
-- Stathis Papaioannou
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