[ExI] Digital Consciousness .

[spike]

-----Original Message-----
From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
[mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Gordon
Sent: Wednesday, April 24, 2013 11:52 AM
To: 'ExI chat list'
Subject: Re: [ExI] Digital Consciousness .

spike,


>>... do explain why we cannot in principle model a neuron with a bunch of
dentrites connected to it and the interconnect and all that stuff.  I know
it is a crazy difficult problem...

>...There are no 1's and 0's floating around in our heads, or anything like
them...

Oh I do disagree sir.  If you go down far enough, you have a number of
molecules that can be completely described by a set of numbers.  Electrons
in a carbon atom exist as 2 in the S orbital, four in the P.  If one is
missing, you can describe that with a number.  If there is something bonded
on there, numbers can get you there.

Of course I don't think we can sim a brain, even a flea brain, down to the
molecular level, but I don't think we would need to.  I think we could come
up with a sim of a neuron however, and a dendrite, and a synapse, and the
other structures on which Anders would need to educate us.  Get a 1e11 of
those running in parallel with 1e14 dendrite sims, and we are already up to
human level brains.

But there are cool things to do with sub-human simulated intelligence too
perhaps.

>... Thoughts are not like programs running in our brains. Consciousness
arises through some biological process that we do not yet understand, but it
is I think biological and not digital... -Gordon

Sure but we don't necessarily need consciousness I suppose.  What we need is
creativity.  Human-ish intelligence may not be needed for intelligence.  If
we get a bunch of neuron sims going in parallel, we might be able to get a
massively parallel sim to learn, then to invent, without ever going thru the
human-ish branch of intelligence.  Then we could go straight to the
Singularity.

Alan, yes I know, the whole concept is evil, and you are agin' it, we know.
Just thinking here.  We could have a singularity without being uploaded, or
a few wildly enthusiastic volunteers being uploaded, that sort of thing.

spike
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