[ExI] Is the brain a digital computer?

[Gordon Swobe]

--- On Thu, 2/25/10, Stathis Papaioannou <stathisp at gmail.com> wrote:

>> You contradicted yourself when you wrote as you did
>> yesterday of "functionally identical but unconscious" brain
>> components. This is why I wrote that making such a thing
>> would be like trying to draw a square triangle. You took my
>> comment wrongly to mean that I deny the possibility of weak
>> AI.
> 
> I have been at pains to say that the brain component is
> functionally identical from the point of view of its external behaviour.

And I have been at pains to explain that you cannot get identical external behavior from an unconscious component. Because of the feedback loop between conscious experience and behavior, the components you have in mind cannot exist. They're oxymoronic.

You open a can of worms when you replace any component of the NCC with one of your unconscious dummy components. But you can close that can of worms with enough work on other parts of the patient. You can continue to work on the patient, patching the software so to speak and rewiring the brain in other areas, until finally you create weak AI. 

The final product of your efforts will pass the Turing test, but its brain structure will differ somewhat from that of the original patient. 

-gts