This puts the computed human in a curious position in as much as she must consider, if philosophising about her existence, whether she is a reductionist version of a ‘deceptive demon’ that (even more) mystically oriented philosophers have been want to consider. Are her neurons processing stimulus or controlled by their own pattern?
On the other hand she does have some advantages. Because her neuron’s responses are initially determined stimulus X and her own cognitive architecture she is free to do whatever experiments are possible within the artificial world X. X will then either present her with a coherent world of the sort humans would be able to comprehend or present her with something that more or less befuddles her mind. After doing experiments to determine how her brain seems to work she knows that either things are what they appear or that the deceptively demonic computationalist overlords are messing with her electronic brain (or potentially any other form of processing). Either by giving her bogus X or making her entire state totally arbitrary. Throw in Boltzman brains as equivalent to ‘computationalist overlords’ too, as far as she is concerned.
I don’t know what points Chalmer’s or Bishop were trying to make about ‘qualia’ because such arguments often make little to no sense to me. This scenario (like most others) looks like just another curious setup in a reductionist universe.
This puts the computed human in a curious position in as much as she must consider, if philosophising about her existence, whether she is a reductionist version of a ‘deceptive demon’ that (even more) mystically oriented philosophers have been want to consider. Are her neurons processing stimulus or controlled by their own pattern?
On the other hand she does have some advantages. Because her neuron’s responses are initially determined stimulus X and her own cognitive architecture she is free to do whatever experiments are possible within the artificial world X. X will then either present her with a coherent world of the sort humans would be able to comprehend or present her with something that more or less befuddles her mind. After doing experiments to determine how her brain seems to work she knows that either things are what they appear or that the deceptively demonic computationalist overlords are messing with her electronic brain (or potentially any other form of processing). Either by giving her bogus X or making her entire state totally arbitrary. Throw in Boltzman brains as equivalent to ‘computationalist overlords’ too, as far as she is concerned.
I don’t know what points Chalmer’s or Bishop were trying to make about ‘qualia’ because such arguments often make little to no sense to me. This scenario (like most others) looks like just another curious setup in a reductionist universe.