[ExI] The digital nature of brains

[Gordon Swobe]

--- On Fri, 2/5/10, Stathis Papaioannou <stathisp at gmail.com> wrote:

>> True or false, Stathis:
>>
>> When a program running on a digital computer associates
>> a sense-datum (say, an image of an object taken with its
>> web-cam) with the appropriate word-symbol, the system
>> running that program has now by virtue of that association
>> grounded the word-symbol and now has [conscious] 
>> understanding of the meaning of that word-symbol.
> 
> Does an amoeba have an understanding of "food" when it
> makes an association between the relevant chemotactic signals 

No, ameobas have nothing I mean by consciousness.

Is my statement above true or false, Stathis? I added the word "conscious" to make me meaning even more clear.

I ask you these T/F questions to try find out exactly what you think.

-gts