[ExI] Do digital computers feel?

[Stuart LaForge]

John Clark wrote:
​<Ah Analog computers, this topic has come up before on the list, I wrote
this in 1995: [. . .] Before we begin construction there are a few helpful
hints I'd like to pass along. Always keep your workplace neat and clean.
Make sure your ​analog ​computer is cold, as it will not operate at any
finite temperature above absolute zero. Use only analog substances and
processes, never use digital things like matter, energy, spin, ​or
electrical charge when you build your analog computer.>

This is a straw man argument. Nobody claimed the brain is an analog
computer. Rafal simply asked that if mathematical infinities are real, as
experimental evidence supports both with regard to the reality of the wave
function and the lack of granularity in space-time, then might not these
infinities allow the brain to generate a continuum of mental states
instead of finite number of discrete mental states?

I don't see why not. The brain certainly exhibits wave-like phenomena;
they are called brain waves. The physics of waves is well understood, and
they propagate on a continuum both mathematically and physically. And yes,
while the quantum properties you enumerate are discrete, the observed
states of those properties are dictated by a quantum wave function which
is itself continuous.
​
John Clark wrote:
<There are an infinite number,​ in fact​ an uncountabley​ infinite number,
of maps that can be drawn on a flat square,  but only 4 colors are needed
to keep all the countries on the map separate. This was proven by a
computer ​way back ​in 1977, ​but​ to this day nobody can prove it without
a computer.>

No actually it was proven by some mathematicians that used a computer to
prove their theorem. The computer didn't even understand the problem it
was trying to solve. Inductive reasoning seems really hard for computers
but seems second nature to us. If you want to be convincing, present
empirical evidence and not specious arguments based on an unsupported
axiom that the brain is some kind of wet naturally evolved digital
computer running a boolean alogorithm.

During the Victorian era, when clocks and and analog pocket-watches were
the most complex technology that people knew of, it became fashionable for
them to believe that nature was some sort of giant clockwork mechanism.
These days the most complex machines we can think of are digital computers
and it seems natural to try to think of the universe as some sort of giant
computer. We are likely just as wrong as the Victorians were.

Stuart LaForge