[ExI] Do digital computers feel?

[Stathis Papaioannou]

> On 22 Dec. 2016, at 10:52 am, William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> <It is generally thought that feelings occur in the central nervous system, specifically the cortex, and that peripheral nerves and hormones act by stimulating the central nervous system.>
> 
> You make it sound like peripheral (i.e. sensory) stimulation is the only way the mind is run. The only thing we feel in our heads is headache (which is not brain ache).  The endocrine system is run by the hypothalamus, which directs the pituitary gland, which controls all the other endocrine glands (exocrine glands like sweat glands are in a different system).  So adrenaline, for ex. comes from the adrenal gland , sitting on top of the kidney, but it was releasing hormones from the pituitary, that told it what to do.  The resulting feelings caused by the adrenaline, such as feeling pumped up and powerful, are a feedback system. 
> 
> A sequence of fear can be started either by thinking or by external stimulation.

Yes, but the extra-cerebral mechanisms are only affect feelings to the extent that they affect the brain. If the same brain activity were to occur in the absence of external stimuli, the effect would be the same. In dreams a wide variety of experiences can occur even though the patient is asleep in bed.

> Now if you want to call something like intuition a feeling, then we are at cross purposes.  I am talking about literal feelings as created by an emotional system, the limbic system. bill w
> 
> <consciousness might reside in the actual brain substance.>
> 
> Where else could it be?  I am a physical monist and don't like metaphysics.  It may be possible for a computer to feel things the way we do, but we will never know. 

The theory of mind called "functionalism" holds that consciousness results from the brain carrying out its business of cognition, rather than from the actual substrate of the brain. This would mean that if the function of the brain could be reproduced using another substrate, such as a digital computer, the associated consciousness would also be reproduced. The paper by Chalmers I cited is a reductio ad absurdum starting with the assumption that consciousness is substrate-dependent, thus establishing functionalism as the better theory.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.extropy.org/pipermail/extropy-chat/attachments/20161222/a8435f01/attachment.html>