<html><body><div style="color:#000; background-color:#fff; font-family:times new roman, new york, times, serif;font-size:12pt"><div style="font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px;">Stathis Papaioannou <stathisp@gmail.com> wrote:</span><br></div><div style="font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 16px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><br></span></div><div style="font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 16px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">>> I believe that if we replaced all the neurons in the NCC with digital</span><br></div><div style="font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif;"><div style="font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times,
serif;"><div class="y_msg_container" style="font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 12pt;">>> implants, the victim of our evil experiment would become comatose. I think<br>>> something is happening in those parts of the brain that correlate to<br>>> consciousness that is not equivalent to digital processing. It's a<br>>> biological process, perhaps electro-chemical in nature, and although we<br>>> might be able to describe it digitally, and build digital implants using<br>>> that description as a blueprint, the implants themselves would fail as they<br>>> are a different sort of thing than the biological processes they describe.<br><br>> Could you clarify what exactly you think we can and can't do in<br>> attempts at simulating neurons in the NCC? It seems you allow that we<br>> could, in principle, make computerised neurons that are not involved<br>> in consciousness
directly, but may perform a relay role passing<br>> information to the NCC. Is that right? </div><div class="y_msg_container" style="font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br></div><div class="y_msg_container" style="font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 12pt;">Yes, that is right. <span style="font-size: 12pt;">I can cause you to experience qualia by opening your cranium and stimulating the surface of your cortex with electricity. I consider digital implants similar in principle to whatever tool I would use in such a procedure. The tool itself is certainly not conscious. </span></div><div class="y_msg_container" style="font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br></div><div class="y_msg_container" style="font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 12pt;">> If not, you are claiming that to calculate the
timing of the action<br>> potentials output by the NCC neuron involves a non-computable<br>> function. </div><div class="y_msg_container" style="font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br></div><div class="y_msg_container" style="font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 12pt;">As I wrote to Ben, I believe the brain is computable. There is some level of description under which we could write a program that simulated the operations of the brain. But I don't believe the resulting digital computation would have consciousness. It is merely a computer program -- an algorithm designed to mimic the observable operations of a brain -- not an actual brain. </div><div class="y_msg_container" style="font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><br></span></div><div class="y_msg_container" style="font-family: 'times new
roman', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">I am myself a programmer, by the way (C++). I can make computers do interesting things that appear conscious, but I don't suppose I could ever write a program that would make a computer actually conscious. That would require magic, like the magic that made Pinocchio come alive. What would the code look like? How do I write a "become conscious" function?</span></div><div class="y_msg_container" style="font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt;"><br></font></div><div class="y_msg_container" style="font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt;">It really comes down to the question of substrate dependency. I believe things are happening in the NCC that might be </font><span style="font-size: 12pt;">synthesized in the
laboratory</span><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt;">, but there is a difference between synthesis and digital simulation.</font></div><div class="y_msg_container" style="font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt;"><br></font></div><div class="y_msg_container" style="font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 12pt;">[I was about to write a criticism of functionalism and multiple realizability here, but I'll have to do it later, perhaps later tonight. No time.]</div><div class="y_msg_container" style="font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br></div><div class="y_msg_container" style="font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 12pt;">> would you accept that the NCC would work properly provided only that<br>> the appropriate calculations could be done by some means?</div><div
class="y_msg_container" style="font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br></div><div class="y_msg_container"><font size="3">It would be by means of biology/chemistry/physics, transplanted or synthesized, but I'm reluctant to call those processes "calculations". That idea is only something we want to assign to the physics of the brain. I think the brain itself is not </font>intrinsically<font size="3"> a calculator, and that a calculator is not intrinsically a brain. It does not follow that because I can do simple math in my head that my head is actually a digital calculator. </font></div><div class="y_msg_container"><font size="3"><br></font></div><div class="y_msg_container"><font size="3">As an aside, I was wondering yesterday if we might someday be able to transplant NCC tissue to repair the brains of comatose people. If Joe just died from a heart attack and Frank is in what appears to be
a permanent coma, perhaps we can transplant some brain tissue from Joe to Frank without changing Frank's identity. And/or perhaps we find a way to synthesize or grow that needed tissue in the laboratory. </font></div><div class="y_msg_container" style="font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br></div><div class="y_msg_container" style="font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 12pt;">Gordon</div> </div> </div> </div></body></html>