[ExI] Brains, Computers, AI and Uploading

Gordon Swobe gts_2000 at yahoo.com
Sun Jan 24 17:12:08 UTC 2010


--- On Sat, 1/23/10, Stathis Papaioannou <stathisp at gmail.com> wrote:

> Yes, I agree with this, but people like Searle assert that
> everything apart from consciousness is computable

Not really an accurate characterization. Better would be "Searle asserts that everything about the brain is computable but that a computation of a brain is not a brain."

Again, digital simulations of things do not equal the things they simulate. Exceptions to this rule may be found in the digital world of software and hardware, but in that case I call them copies (or perhaps emulations as Damien likes to say), not simulations.

IFF human brains exist in actual fact as digital computers then computations (simulations) of them will have consciousness. But Searle makes a strong case, one that I find compelling, that actual human brains do not exist as digital computers. 


-gts


      



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