[ExI] Is the brain a digital computer?

[Christopher Luebcke]

If my fervent belief that spreadsheets are not round and magnetic commits me to property dualism, then I fully embrace my hitherto undiscovered, yet apparently inescapable, dogma.

I welcome to my new camp all true believers in the proposition that apples are not made of red.



________________________________
From: Gordon Swobe <gts_2000 at yahoo.com>
To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Sent: Sat, February 27, 2010 6:31:40 AM
Subject: Re: [ExI] Is the brain a digital computer?

--- On Fri, 2/26/10, Christopher Luebcke <cluebcke at yahoo.com> wrote:

> Not dualism in the sense of some ineffable, non-interactive
> properties. But in the sense that certain properties pertain
> to information, or motion, or activity, but not necessarily
> to matter.

If you hold that matter can have both physical and non-physical properties, and if you consider mental states (thoughts, beliefs, desires, and so on) as non-physical properties of matter, then you may consider yourself a property dualist.

Property dualism appeared as a reasonable reaction to Cartesian substance dualism, but it still leaves us with a mysterious non-physical mind that materialist/physicalists like me find unsatisfactory.

I don't consider myself a big fan of "isms" but it does sometimes help to know where one stands.

-gts




      
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