[ExI] Is the brain a digital computer?

[Stathis Papaioannou]

On 22 February 2010 03:11, Gordon Swobe <gts_2000 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> --- On Sun, 2/21/10, Stathis Papaioannou <stathisp at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> But the computation may, for example, predict how far the
>> nail will be driven into the wood, which is a replication of a property
>> of the real event.
>
> "Predicting an event" != "replication of a property".

If you're driving the nail into the wood to see how far in it will go
then the simulation does actually replicate that aspect of the event.
And the simulation can then be put to work controlling a
hammer-wielding robot. It's not the same as a person, but it can
perform that particular function of a person. In fact a computer
controlling a robot can perform any function of the person whatsoever,
but you claim that the exception is consciousness. What is it about
consciousness that makes it unique among all the qualities in the
universe?

> I consider computations of natural processes including brain processes as a-causal; that is, the computations describe and predict natural processes but they do not determine them.
>
> In general, nature "follows" no supposed laws or algorithms. She just does what she does, and humans talk about it with computations and so-called laws of physics.

Yes, this is something I more or less said before. There is no
fundamental low level difference between a computer implementing a
program and a brain generating thought.


-- 
Stathis Papaioannou