[ExI] digital simulations, descriptions and copies

Stathis Papaioannou stathisp at gmail.com
Wed Jan 20 00:12:08 UTC 2010


2010/1/19 Gordon Swobe <gts_2000 at yahoo.com>:
> --- On Mon, 1/18/10, Stathis Papaioannou <stathisp at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> But a digital simulation of a clock will still tell the
>> time. You have to show that consciousness is more like an
>> apple than like the telling of time.
>
> The computationalist theory of mind, in which the brain is seen as a digital computer running software, does not explain how people can understand their own words. It seems then that those who advance the theory literally don't know what they're talking about.
>
> I don't pretend to fully understand the human brain/mind, but for now I have no choice but to accept the default position that it exists as a non-digital object in nature, as just one very smart apple.

The "matter thinks" theory of mind can't explain where how people
understand words either. My chair doesn't think, neither does a glass
of water, even if you put salt and amino acids and whatever else you
fancy in it. How could it? It's impossible! But people do think, so
the mind must come from something other than matter. It can't come
from matter processing information either. So it must be magic!

> More on topic: At some level of description almost anything can be seen as digital. The high priests of computationalism noticed this mundane fact and made a religion out of it. They conflate the digital descriptions of things with the non-digital things they describe.

The theory is that it is matter acting in a particular way that
produces intelligence and that consciousness is a necessary
accompaniment of intelligence. Your theory is that matter acting in a
particular way produces intelligence and, independently of this, it
produces consciousness. It is the possibility that intelligence and
consciousness can be separated that is the primary problem in all this
discussion. If they can be separated this leads to an absurdity: that
you could be a zombie right now and not know it. This is absurd
because although zombies don't know they are zombies, conscious people
know they are *not* zombies, otherwise the distinction between zombies
and conscious people becomes meaningless. You've responded to the
thought experiment that leads to this absurdity by saying that it's
crazy, and I take that as agreement.

If consciousness and intelligence can't be separated and you still
feel strongly about computers lacking consciousness, then you can
consistently claim that computers can't have the sort of intelligence
associated with consciousness. There is nothing in the laws of physics
which says this isn't so, although also nothing in what we know to
suggest it is so.


-- 
Stathis Papaioannou



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