[ExI] Do digital computers feel?

John Clark johnkclark at gmail.com
Fri Dec 30 19:11:52 UTC 2016


On Fri, Dec 30, 2016 at 1:50 AM, Rafal Smigrodzki <
rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com> wrote:


> ​> ​
> there could be qualitative differences between digital simulations of
> brains and the inherently analog computations that occur in brains.
>

​Can you think of an example of a brain performing an analog computation,
or for that matter ANYTHING performing an analog calculation? I can't
because I can't think of anything that can be in an infinite number of
physically discernible states, and physics is needed for anything to
perform any calculation.  ​


​> ​
> ​t​here are non-computable mathematical problems, why can't you have
> non-computable physics


​It's a bad idea to invoke new physics to explain a mystery ​unless there
is a very very *VERY* good reason, and in this case the new physics
wouldn't even solve a mystery. Why on earth would non-computable stuff be
more conscious than computable stuff? Most numbers on the Real number line
are non-computable and as a result do not and can not even have a name, are
they more self aware than a computable number like 1/3, the square root of
2, PI, or e? And physics can provide answers to problems, but
non-computable "physics" can not by its very definition, so what's the
point of it?

 John K Clark
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.extropy.org/pipermail/extropy-chat/attachments/20161230/f972679f/attachment.html>


More information about the extropy-chat mailing list