[ExI] Meaningless Symbols.

Gordon Swobe gts_2000 at yahoo.com
Sat Jan 16 17:41:32 UTC 2010


--- On Fri, 1/15/10, Stathis Papaioannou <stathisp at gmail.com> wrote:

> The drugs can do this only by affecting the behaviour of
> neurons. What you claim is that it is possible to make a physical 
> change to a neuron which leaves its behaviour unchanged but changes or
> eliminates the person's consciousness.

You keep assigning absolute atomic status to neurons and their behaviors, forgetting that just as the brain is made of neurons, neurons are made of objects too. Those intra-neuronal objects have as much right to claim atomic status as does the neuron, and larger inter-neuronal structures can also make that claim. 

And on top of that you assume that digital simulations of whatever structures you arbitrarily designate as atomic will in fact work exactly like the supposed atomic structures you hope to simulate -- which presupposes that the brain in actual fact exists as a digital computer. 


-gts


      



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