Online research in philosophy

Computationalism provides a framework for understanding how a mathematically describable physical world could give rise to conscious observations without the need for dualism. A criterion is proposed for the implementation of computations by physical systems, which has been a problem for computationalism. Together with an independence criterion for implementations this would allow, in principle, prediction of probabilities for various observations based on counting implementations. Applied to quantum mechanics, this results in a Many Computations Interpretation (MCI), which is an explicit form (...) of the Everett style Many Worlds Interpretation (MWI). Derivation of the Born Rule emerges as the central problem for most realist interpretations of quantum mechanics. If the Born Rule is derived based on computationalism and the wavefunction it would provide strong support for the MWI; but if the Born Rule is shown not to follow from these to an experimentally falsified extent, it would indicate the necessity for either new physics or (more radically) new philosophy of mind. (shrink)

The fallacy that the many worlds interpretation (MWI) of quantum mechanics implies certain survival in quantum-Russian-roulette-like situations (the ‘Quantum Suicide’ (QS) thought experiment) has become common enough that it is now necessary to publicly debunk this belief despite the risk of further publicizing it. ‘Quantum Immortality’ (QI) is an extension of the QS Fallacy (QSF) with some additional unlikely assumptions. The QS/QI ideas are examined here and shown to be false.

The ‘Fading Qualia’ thought experiment of Chalmers purports to show that computationalism is very probably true even if dualism is true by considering a series of brains, with biological parts increasingly substituted for by artificial but functionally analagous parts in small steps, and arguing that consciousness would not plausibly vanish in either a gradual or sudden way. This defense of computationalism inspired an attack on computationalism by Bishop, who argued that a similar series of substitutions by parts that have the (...) correct physical activity but not the correct causal relationships must likewise preserve consciousness, purportedly showing that ‘Counterfactuals Cannot Count’ and if so ruining a necessary condition for computation to meaningfully distinguish between physical systems. In this paper, the case in which a series of parts are simply removed and substituted for only by imposing the correct boundary conditions to exactly preserve the functioning of the remaining partial brain is described. It is argued that consciousness must gradually vanish in this case, not by fading but by becoming more and more partial. This supports the non-centralized nature of consciousness, tends to support the plausibility of physicalism against dualism, and provides the proper counterargument to Bishop’s contention. It also provides an avenue of attack against the “Fading Qualia” argument for those who remain dualists. (shrink)