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Minds and Machines

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01-05-2006

Quantity of experience: brain-duplication and degrees of consciousness

Author: Nick Bostrom

Published in: Minds and Machines | Issue 2/2006

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Abstract

If a brain is duplicated so that there are two brains in identical states, are there then two numerically distinct phenomenal experiences or only one? There are two, I argue, and given computationalism, this has implications for what it is to implement a computation. I then consider what happens when a computation is implemented in a system that either uses unreliable components or possesses varying degrees of parallelism. I show that in some of these cases there can be, in a deep and intriguing sense, a fractional (non-integer) number of qualitatively identical phenomenal experiences. This, in turn, has implications for what lessons one should draw from neural replacement scenarios such as Chalmers’ “Fading Qualia” thought experiment.

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On the standard Big Bang model, assuming the simplest topology (i.e. that space is singly connected), there are three fundamental possibilities: the universe can be open, flat, or closed. Current data suggests a flat or open universe, although the final verdict is still pending. If the universe is either open or flat, then it is spatially infinite at every point in time and the Big Bang model entails that it contains an infinite number of galaxies, stars, and planets. See e.g. (Martin, 1995).

See e.g. (Hawking & Israel, 1979), p. 19.

(Bostrom, 2002a, b).

If, for different temperatures, there are different numbers of possible maximally specific experiences of observing that temperature, it would not help. What is needed is that the frequency of experiences of a particular sort of observation strongly correlates with the veridicality of the observation. If the only reason for there being a greater frequency of experiences of observing 2.7 K than of observing 3.1 K were that there were more possible maximally specific experiences of the former kind, then this difference in frequency could not be the ground for our inferring that the actual temperature is probably 2.7 K, since the frequency would be the same whether the temperature is 2.7 K or 3.1 K. The frequency is only evidentially relevant if it correlates with the hypotheses under consideration.

(Zuboff, 1991), p. 39. See also an earlier paper by the same author (Zuboff, 1978).

Similar scenarios have of course been discussed in the earlier literature; see e.g. (Parfit, 1984).

This might be the technologically most practicable way for an advanced civilization to create “brain-duplicates”; see e.g. (Bostrom, 2003). Here it mainly serves to facilitate exposition. This particular way of imagining the situation, however, is not necessary for the arguments that follow. One could transpose the examples that involve computers into examples involving brains-in-vats stimulated by mad scientists.

(Klein, 2004). For some other discussions of what it is to implement a computation, see also (Barnes, 1991; Chalmers, 1996; Maudlin, 1989; Wilson, 1994).

I do not claim that all kinds of unreliability are best modeled in this way, but considering only “unreliability” that fits this model will serve the purposes of this paper.

These statements are consistent with an epistemicist account of vagueness (see e.g. Williamson, 1994). It might be true of any system either that it has associated phenomenal experience or that it does not. The point here is that systems that have associated phenomenal experience can have it in varying amounts or degrees of “intensity,” even when the duration and the qualitative character of the experience does not vary. Moreover, this particular quantity of degree does not come only in integer increments. Formally, this is no more mysterious than the fact that sticks come in different lengths and that length is a continuous variable (at least on the macroscopic scale).

Similar scenarios had been discussed earlier, e.g. (Cuda, 1985; Pylyshyn, 1980; Savitt, 1980).

(Chalmers, 1995), p. 256.

(Searle, 1992), pp. 66f.

Split-brain patients might also come to mind as a candidate for mind-duplication. But the reason why we even consider the possibility of there being two minds in these cases is that it seems as if the two hemispheres have qualitatively different conscious experiences.

For their comments, I’m grateful to Heather Bradshaw, David Chalmers, Wei Dai, Adam Elga, Hal Finney, Guy Kahane, Colin Klein, Toby Ord, and Oliver Pooley.

Barnes, E. (1991). The causal history of computational activity: Maudlin and Olympia. Journal of Philosophy, 88(6), 304–316MathSciNetCrossRef

Bostrom, N. (2002a). Anthropic bias: Observation selection effects in science and philosophy. New York: Routledge

Bostrom, N. (2002b). Self-locating belief in big worlds: Cosmology’s missing link to observation. Journal of Philosophy, 99(12), 607–623

Bostrom, N. (2003). Are you living in a computer simulation? Philosophical Quarterly, 53(211), 243–255CrossRef

Chalmers, D. (1995). Absent qualia, fading qualia, dancing qualia. In: Metzinger, T. (Ed.), Conscious experience. Paderborn: Exetes Schoningh (in association with) Imprint Academic

Chalmers, D. (1996). Does a rock implement every finite-state automaton? Synthese, 108, 309–333MATHMathSciNetCrossRef

Cuda, T. (1985). Against neural chauvinism. Philosophical Studies, 48, 111–127CrossRef

Hawking, S. W., & Israel W. (Eds.) (1979). General relativity: An Einstein centenary survey. Cambridge: Cambridge University PressMATH

Klein, C. (2004). Maudlin on computation. Working paper

Martin, J. L. (1995). General relativity. London: Prentice HallMATH

Maudlin, T. (1989). Computation and consciousness. Journal of Philosophy, 86(8), 407–432CrossRef

Parfit, D. (1984). Reasons and persons. Oxford: Clarendon Press

Pylyshyn, Z. (1980). The ‘causal power’ of machines. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 3, 417–457CrossRef

Savitt, S. (1980). Searle’s demon and the brain simulator reply. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 5, 342–343

Searle, J. R. (1992). The rediscovery of the mind. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press

Williamson, T. (1994). Vagueness. London: Routledge

Wilson, R. A. (1994). Wide computationalism. Mind, 103(411), 351–372

Zuboff, A. (1978). Moment universals and personal identity. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 52, 141–155

Zuboff, A. (1991). One self: The logic of experience. Inquiry, 33, 39–68CrossRef

Title: Quantity of experience: brain-duplication and degrees of consciousness
Author: Nick Bostrom
Publication date: 01-05-2006
Publisher: Kluwer Academic Publishers
Published in: Minds and Machines / Issue 2/2006
Print ISSN: 0924-6495
Electronic ISSN: 1572-8641
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11023-006-9036-0

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Other articles of this Issue 2/2006

M. Augier and J. G. March (eds): Models of a Man: Essays in Memory of Herbert Simon.

The concept of strong and weak virtual reality

The logic of Searle’s Chinese room argument

In the hands of machines? The future of aged care

Dedre Gentner and Susan Goldin-Meadow (eds): Language in Mind: Advances in␣the Study of Language and Thought.

Maria Teresa Guasti, Language Acquisition: The Growth of Grammar.

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