Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
> 2009/8/22 Brent Meeker <meekerdb.domain.name.hidden>:
>
>> That's an interesting question and one that I think relates to the
>> importance of context. A scan of your brain would capture all the
>> information in the Shannon/Boltzman sense, i.e. it would determine which
>> of the possible configurations and processes were realized. However,
>> those concerned about the "hard problem", will point out that this
>> misses the fact that the information represents or "means" something.
>> To know the meaning of the information would require knowledge of the
>> world in which the brain acts and perceives, including a lot of
>> evolutionary history. Image scanning the brain of an alien found in a
>> crash at Roswell. Without knowledge of how he acts and the evolutionary
>> history of his species it would be essentially impossible to guess the
>> meaning of the patterns in his brain. My point is that it is not just
>> computation that is consciousness or cognition, but computation with
>> meaning, which means within a certain context of action.
>
> You wouldn't be able to guess what the alien is thinking by scanning
> his brain, but you could then run a simulation, exposing it to various
> environmental stimuli, and it should behave the same way as the
> original brain (if weak AI is true) and have the same experiences as
> the original brain (if strong AI is true).
>
>
True. But the point was directed at the MGA. Part of the simulation
must be outside the brain - and possibly are very great deal. So
while it seems intuitively clear that the brain can be emulated, it's
not so clear that the brain + enough environment can be.
Brent
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Received on Sat Aug 22 2009 - 19:12:19 PDT