On 3/29/07, John M <jamikes.domain.name.hidden> wrote:
>
> Stathis:
> let me keep only your reply-part and ask my question(s):
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> *From:* Stathis Papaioannou <stathisp.domain.name.hidden>
> *To:* everything-list.domain.name.hidden
> *Sent:* Sunday, March 25, 2007 7:34 PM
> *Subject:* Re: Statistical Measure, does it matter?
>
>
>
>
> On 3/25/07, Mark Peaty <mpeaty.domain.name.hidden > wrote:
> >
> > SKIP - Sorry, Mark, this goes to Stathis, who wrote:
> >
> > *-SP:
> >
> Standard computationalism is just the theory that your brain could be
> replaced with an appropriately configured digital computer and you would not
> only act the same, you would also feel the same. - *
>
> <JM>
> I am not implying that you accept it, just scribble down my remarks to the
> topic - in accordance maybe with your opinion.
>
> 1. Standard? meaning our embryonic-level (first model) 0-1 binary digital
> mechanism? Do we really believe that our "human complexity" is that
> simplistic and ends at the inner surface of our skull? Even there (locally
> restricted) we know only a bit of what our "thinking mind" is capable
> of/doing. Some of these features are reproduced into binary digital
> churnings and that is the standard. A robot of limited capabilities (maybe
> if in certain aspects even exceeding the limits of our human activity
> details).
> I think 'comp' as Bruno uses the word and compares it to a L-machine is
> not like such 'standard': it may be "analogous", or, if digital: of
> unlimited variance (infinitary, not only binary), and not even simulable in
> our today's epistemy.
>
> The non-standard part of Bruno's comp, as I see it, is to accept that
computation can lead to thought but to reject the physical supervenience
theory, i.e. that computation requires certain physical processes to take
place in order to "happen". But that question aside, computationalism
depends on the idea that (a) it is *in principle* possible to reproduce all
the physical processes in our brain using a computer, to an arbitrary degree
of precision, and (b) such a reproduction, yielding by definition a
functionally identical brain, also yields a functionally identical mind -
i.e., as opposed to a zombie. Roger Penrose says that (a) is false; John
Searle and religious people say that even if (a) is true, (b) is false. I
tend to think that (a) and (b) are both true, but I am not completely sure.
> 2. Replaced? meaning one takes out that goo of neurons, proteins and
> other tissue-stuff with its blood suply and replace the cavity (no matter
> how bigger or smaller) by a (watch it): *digital* computer, "appropriately
> configured" and electric flow in it. For the quale-details see the par #1.
>
> Each neuron is made up of macromolecules in a watery medium. The
macromolecules follow the laws of physics: there are equations which
describe how phospholipid bilayers form membranes, how proteins embedded in
these membranes change conformation when ligands bind to them, how these
conformation changes result in ion fluxes and changes in transmembrane
potential, and so on. So if you ignore for the moment the technical
difficulties involved in working all this out and implementing it, it should
be possible to program a computer to behave just like a biological brain,
receiving afferent impulses from sense organs and sending afferent impulses
to muscles, which would result in a being whose behaviour is
indistinguishable from that of an intact human. The only way around this
conclusion is if the behaviour of the brain depends on physical processes
which are not computable, like Penrose's postulated quantum gravity effects.
This is possible, but there isn't really any good evidence supporting it, as
far as I'm aware.
> 3. "you" - and who should that be? can we separate our living
> brain (I mean with all its functionality) from 'YOU', the self, the
> person, or call it the simulacron of yourself? What's left? Is there "me"
> and "my brain"? As I like to call it: the brain is the 'tool' of my
> mind, mind is pretty unidentified, but - is close to my-self, some call it
> life, some consciousness, - those items we like to argue about because none
> of us knows what we are talking about (some DO THINK they know, but only
> something and for themselves).
>
>
I find it hard to define consciousness, but I know what it is, and so does
everyone who has it.
4. "feel" ----????---- who/what? the transistors?
> (Let me repeat: I am not talking about Transistor Stathis).
>
>
You could equally well ask, do the proteins/ phospholipids/ nucleic acids
etc. feel? Apparently, they do. If your brain stops working or is seriously
damaged, you stop feeling.
*-SP:
> Bruno goes on to show that this entails there is no separate physical
> reality by means of the UDA, but we can still talk about computationalism -
> the predominant theory in cognitive science - without discussing the UDA.
> And in any case, the ideas Brent and I have been discussing are still
> relevant if computationalism is wrong and (again a separate matter) there is
> only one universe.
> Stathis Papaioannou-*
>
> <JM>
> Yes, "we today" KNOW about only 1 universe. But we believe in a physical
> reality what we 'feel', 'live it' and hold as our 'truth' as well. Even
> those 'more advanced' minds saying they don't believe in it, cry out
> (OMIGOD!) when "Dr. Johnson's stone" hurts their toe in the shoe.
>
> I like to draw comparisons between "what we know today" and what we knew
> 1000, 3000, or 5000 years ago and ask: what will we 'know' just 500 years
> ahead in the future by a continuing epistemic enrichment? (If humanity
> survives that long).
> Please, readers, just list the answers alphabetically.
>
>
I don't know the answer. Maybe next year there will be some discovery which
will have us all laughing at the idea that computers can be conscious, but
at present we can only go on the information available to us, and try to
keep an open mind.
Stathis Papaioannou
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Received on Thu Mar 29 2007 - 06:02:39 PDT