Consciousness

1) Ned Block comments parenthetically that if we are Turing Machines then part of our tape is the external world (Block, Ned. “Troubles With Functionalism” in The Nature of Mind, David Rosenthal ed.). This hint will lead us to see that we are Turing machines indeed, but with a twist and it will resolve many of the paradoxical aspects of our concept of perception and consciousness.

2) Let us then introduce the notion of a NTM (Non-symbolic Turing Machine). A NTM is a Turing machine with a 'head' which, instead of being a read/write machine governed by a set of rules ,is now a Turing machine with a head which, instead, using pattern recognition, responds to what we call objects and situations - as well as to symbols in the conventional way. The 'write' part of the head is replaced by any part of the human body which can modify the world around it. This broadened conception of the head means that the read/write head is now expanded to include the whole human body. Finally the 'tape' of the Non-symbolic Turing Machine is the world: the world is what the new head reads, it is the tape to which it writes.

3) While the classical Turing Machine has a tape and, on the tape, symbols, by contrast, our tape includes anything in the world, and anything which we could recognize with pattern recognition - whether or not the thing is a symbol. A NTM's tape has things on it which we conceptualize as material objects in their relations to each other. We ( a member of homo sapiens) are then not inourselves a Turing machine but only read/write heads scurrying across the world, sharing the same tape.

4) And these 'heads' are on the tape they read.

5) Needless to say the tape also includes anything inside our body. We can regard ourselves as machines which replace the act of moving the tape with movement over the tape, roaming the world we read and write to that world - by picking a flower, making a speech, typing, etc..

6) Objection: “The Turing machine which we are, only has something on its tape if it has been read and if the imprint of the reading has reached our central nervous system. Hence the real world is not literally on the tape, rather only the neural impressions which it creates in us as we observe the world.” Ans.: We can be seen as a read/write heads which have the world as part of their tape, that we consist of a roaming r/w head in the strict sense of the term. Our tape is the world over which we roam. It is tempting to think that we can only operate on something if it is actually in the read/write head, but this misunderstands a Turing machine. Of course a tape is part of any Turing machine and part of it can be in the r/w head, but part of it can be ‘outside’ the head such that almost all of it is not being read at any moment. Hence then, in a NTM we are part of our tape, as part of the world, and that world is not outside the head since the head is itself part of the world.

7) But now we can go further: the tape of a Turing Machine is part of the machine, hence we need to consider the implications of now accepting that the world which I observe must be considered a part of me. And first, that things I see do not have to be brought to/into me. They can't be brought in. The world being part of me it follows that everything in the world is a part of me already - and of you.

8) “Where and how does the yellow of the flower get created in me at the end of the causal chain?” is evidently an inappropriate question. The object examined by a NTM is in the NTM already, was there before it was read - as are all the object's properties. Speaking literally the NTM has the flower as part of itself and that part of the NTM is yellow.

9) On this extended account of Turing Machines we can now say that to see yellow is to be in an internal relation which has parts of ourselves as its relata, it involves seeing the world exactly as it is, and we must conceptualize all the world as within each NTM. This is simple conception of what constitutes our body thus deals with the issues of perception and consciousness. One implication is that there is no inside or outside world relative to an NTM and further that our bodies (newspeak) overlap – like conjoined twins. We therefore see the same flower, indeed, it is part of both of us.

10) Now, such a Turing machine which has the world on its tape (as well as symbols) can have itself and all its activities on its tape - as well as all the contents of its read/write head (our body including the brain). This explains how it is that we are conscious. Let us understand that the essence of a conscious being is that it be both the observer and the observed, then if all my activities are activities of a NTM and I am on my own tape, I am conscious. Indeed, these terms (observer and observed) become paradoxical concepts since in the conventional sense they refer to different things. Newly understood consciousness becomes such that 'being conscious of the world' in the conventional sense is no longer possible. Perception becomes an interesting relation between parts of ourselves which in no way involves bringing the world into ourselves. We no longer have to bring in an essence, or an image, or a phenomenal experience, or a symbol, or whaterver to explain perception. And we can be observer and observed, conscious.



10) Can an NTM be in the same relation to the world as another? No, at any moment the NTM is made distinct by the location of the location of its r/w head. in the (shared) world.