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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 14/12/2025 21:35, Colin Hales and
John Clark wrote:<br>
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<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:mailman.10.1765748119.15606.extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org"><span
class="gmail-im"><br>
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<blockquote class="gmail_quote"
style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><font
size="4" face="georgia, serif"><i><span
class="gmail_default"
style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">>>> </span>So
yes, we humans will/can make machines that
have the same fundamental physics "spark",
and the details of the kinds and degrees
of it will be different. Those machines
cannot be based on general purpose
computers </i></font></blockquote>
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<div><font size="4" face="tahoma, sans-serif"><b><span
class="gmail_default"
style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">>></span>Why not?<span
class="gmail_default"> </span> </b></font></div>
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<div dir="auto"><font size="4" face="georgia, serif"><i><span
class="gmail_default"
style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">> </span>Because
replicating the brain signalling physics of a natural
brain has never happened.</i></font></div>
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<div><font size="4" face="tahoma, sans-serif"><b>Nobody has even
tried to make an AI<span class="gmail_default"> that uses
the same physiological processes that a biological brain
does because those biological processes <u>SUCK</u> compared
to electronic processes. </span> </b></font></div>
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<div dir="auto"><i><font face="georgia, serif" size="4"><span
class="gmail_default"
style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">> </span>Since
the beginning. A real artificial version of natural
excitable cells would emanate an EEG and MEG like us.
The physics of a general purpose computer doesn't do
that<span class="gmail_default">.</span></font></i></div>
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<font size="4" face="tahoma, sans-serif"><b>Who cares! Long before
EEG and MEG devices were invented people concluded that their
fellow human beings were conscious. Why? Because they behaved
intelligently.</b></font>
<div><font size="4" face="tahoma, sans-serif"><b><span
class="gmail_default"></span></b></font></div>
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"<span class="gmail-im"><font size="4" face="georgia, serif"><i>replicating
the brain signalling physics of a natural brain has never
happened"<br>
<br>
</i></font></span><span class="gmail-im"><font size="4"
face="DejaVu Sans">This is both true and false, depending on
what 'replicating' means.<br>
<br>
You could say that replicating the physics of weather systems
has never happened. In a sense, that is true, although it's
irrelevant, because the aim is to <i>model</i> weather systems,
inside a computer. That's something we can do pretty well these
days, and is extremely useful.<br>
<br>
While I have no objection to the idea of building systems that
replicate the physics of human thought, I don't think it's
necessary, or even a good idea, when we can model the same
processes in digital computers, which, incidentally, gives us
much more scope for understanding and modifying them.<br>
<br>
As John notes, using electronic systems (and particularly
digital ones) is far superior to simply mimicking the physics of
biology.<br>
<br>
"</font></span><i><font face="georgia, serif" size="4">A real
artificial version of natural excitable cells would emanate an
EEG and MEG like us. The physics of a general purpose computer
doesn't do that<span class="gmail_default">."</span></font></i><br>
<span class="gmail-im"><font size="4" face="DejaVu Sans"><br>
This is the same kind of thinking that leads people to say
things like "A simulation of a rainstorm isn't wet". This is
true, but is also a pointless observation. Simulations of things
produce simulated results, so a (sufficiently good) simulation
of a rainstorm will produce simulated wetness. In the same way,
a simulation, in a general-purpose computer, of natural
excitable cells will produce simulated EEG and MEG (not that
these matter, any more than the tick of a clock matters to how
good it is at keeping time. because they are side-effects, and
could be eliminated without any consequence).<br>
<br>
General-purpose computers can produce any phenomenon that can be
produced by classical physics, and that includes any biological
phenomenon. If you object to simulated results, that's easily
fixed by linking the computer model to the relevant transducers,
which turn the simulated signals into 'real-world' ones.<br>
<br>
Nobody, to my knowledge, thinks that digital electronic
simulations of sound waves (as in modern synthesisers for
example, or amplifiers, etc.) are inferior to 'real' sound, or
can't be treated as exactly equivalent. Yet they are just
numbers travelling along wires and through logic chips.<br>
<br>
The same principle applies to thought.<br>
<br>
And to mathematics. Is the result of 1+2 any different because
you use an electronic calculator instead of an abacus, or your
fingers? Does it matter that the calculator doesn't make the
same clicking sound as the abacus beads?<br>
<br>
Digital electronics, in the form of general-purpose computers
are just as capable of producing any "fundamental physics
'spark'" as any other suitably complex physical system, like ion
gates in semi-permeable membranes (the system our brains use),
beer-cans and string, networks of rod-logic gates, magnetic
fields and plasma, etc., etc. The specific substrate doesn't
matter, as long as it's complex enough and capable of modifying
its own behaviour. The big difference is that computers are much
more versatile than any of those other things, and can operate
much faster than most of them.</font></span>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
Ben</pre>
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