[ExI] [Exl] Digital Consciousness

[Stathis Papaioannou]

On 04/05/2013, at 12:40 AM, "spike" <spike at rainier66.com> wrote:

> 
>> ... On Behalf Of Stathis Papaioannou
> 
>> ...How can we add this special spark to a television or a tree, say, to
> give it a mind? Would it be easier with an old fashioned analogue TV than
> with the newer digital ones? -- Stathis Papaioannou
> _______________________________________________
> 
> Any analog circuit or any mechanical system can be simulated to arbitrary
> precision digitally.  Get some kid who is hot with his Simulink and Matlab
> to demonstrate if you don't believe it.  As soon as they do, you will
> realize your entire engineering education was a waste of time.  You could
> have gone straight to software, skipped all that differential equation
> nightmare, study Matlab and Simulink for a couple years, be able to do
> everything a good mechanical engineer can do and more, cheaper, faster,
> better.
> 
> It looks to me like a brain is a mechanical system filled with analog
> circuits.  It is wildly complicated of course, but it is an analog circuit.
> Once we know enough about it, we can simulate it, on something like a
> ramped-up version of Simulink and Matlab, ja?
> 
> I have been pondering that for over 15 yrs, and have never found the flaw in
> that line of reasoning.  Looks to me like the connectome project is the
> first baby step in that direction.

There's no flaw in this line of reasoning unless there is something fundamentally non-computable in the brain, which is what Roger Pentose has claimed. However, there is no evidence for this.