[ExI] The digital nature of brains (was: digital simulations)

Gordon Swobe gts_2000 at yahoo.com
Sat Jan 30 14:45:19 UTC 2010


--- On Sat, 1/30/10, Eric Messick <eric at m056832107.syzygy.com> wrote:

> Searle:
>>>Of course the brain is a digital computer. Since
> everything is a
> >>digital computer, brains are too.
> 
>> I think he means that the brain, like everything else,
>> is computable,
>> a statement of the physical Church-Turing thesis:
> 
> Perhaps, though it's a really funny way of saying it. 
> I mean, is a rock a digital computer because you can simulate it with
> one?  Not a very useful term in that case.

Exactly, Eric. We can at some level of description call anything digital, but this does not make it so. 

Except in the special cases of actual digital computers and actual software, we merely project a digital interpretation onto a non-digital reality. 

-gts


      



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