Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
> Brent Meeker writes:
>
>
>>Almost is not completely. In any case, I don't think consciousness is maintained
>>indefinitely with no inputs. I think a "brain-in-a-vat" would go into an endless
>>loop without external stimulus.
>
>
> That's an assumption,
No, it has empirical support. It is what is reported by people in extended sensory
deprivation experiments.
>but even if true it would only say something about the
> nature of human brains. It is easy enough to imagine a brain with self-excitatory
> neurons that provide the same kind of input as the environment does, modulating
> their activity in response to feedback from other neurons. It would just be a
> technical problem to ensure that it didn't go into an endless loop.
Without inherent (quantum) randomness? I don't think so. Close deterministic
systems have a Poincare return time.
Brent Meeker
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Received on Wed Aug 23 2006 - 12:32:57 PDT