[ExI] Do digital computers feel?

William Flynn Wallace foozler83 at gmail.com
Wed Dec 21 19:22:21 UTC 2016


That neurons are complicated is no argument against their computability. A
valid such argument would involve a claim that neurons utilise
non-computable physics.

N
​ever argued that​.  But assuming that some super super computer could
emulate the firings of a set of neurons is a long way from saying that the
computer would experience what the person does.  Feelings are just that  -
something you feel.  Emotions come from motion, moving.  The neurons do
something besides just fire  - they activate hormonal networks which in
turn activate muscles and other glands and so on.  Anxiety, for one, can be
felt in one's arms and legs and in another person's head, another person's
stomach and so on.

Are there going to be connected networks to emulate the endocrine system?
The muscles and sinews?  The organs of digestion?

And so on and so on.  And still you have utterly no reason to think that
the computer experiences human emotions.  Assuming the computer can talk,
you could ask it what it feels and it has no way of knowing how to answer
that.  It can only put it in human language.  Humans, on the other hand,
have no idea what an electrical circuit feels when it is activated, right?

This will have to be the end of my 'contribution' to this discussion.  I
don't know any more.  For more you will have to talk to a computer person.
Which I for sure am not.

bill w

On Wed, Dec 21, 2016 at 12:59 PM, Stathis Papaioannou <stathisp at gmail.com>
wrote:

>
> On Thu., 22 Dec. 2016 at 2:20 am, William Flynn Wallace <
> foozler83 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Hi William,
>>
>> You are the original asker in this thread of subject "Do digital
>> computers feel?" right?
>>
>> No, not me.  I have scanned the conversations between you and John and
>> have to say that I don't understand any of it.
>>
>> The idea that code can emulate human experience is just ludicrous to me.
>> Four quadrillion neural firings a second in our brains.  I don't think any
>> supercomputer will be able to deal with that for some time.  Suppose you
>> isolate a neuron:  some have up to tens of thousands of connections with
>> other neurons, which maybe exciting it, suppressing it, or not changing.
>> And I believe that I read where a neuron can change its state from
>> excitatory to inhibitory or the other way around.  Just mind boggling
>> complicated to try to understand one second of the neuron's behavior.
>>
>> It's like some people seem to believe that neurons are like electrical
>> wires and circuits, able to be laid out in a diagram.  Extremely more
>> complicated than that.
>>
>> bill w
>>
>> That neurons are complicated is no argument against their computability.
>> A valid such argument would involve a claim that neurons utilise
>> non-computable physics.
>>
>>
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