On Monday, 8 July 2013 at 12:04:14 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:
On 7/8/2013 2:02 AM, Tommi wrote:
I don't buy that. Humans don't process data like computers do.
Humans don't and _can't_ process data like computers do, but
computers _can_
process data like humans do.
Human brain does it's computation in a highly parallel manner,
but signals run
much slower than they do in computers. What human brain does
is a very specific
process, optimized for survival on planet Earth.
But computers are generic computation devices. They can model
any computational
processes, including the ones that human brain uses (at least
once we get some
more cores in our computers).
Except that we have no idea how brains actually work.
Are fruit flies self-aware? Probably not. Are dogs? Definitely.
So at what point between fruit flies and dogs does
self-awareness start?
We have no idea. None at all.
Problem A) Understanding how the human brain processes certain
types of information.
Problem B) Making a decision about what constitutes
self-awareness and where to draw the line.
Those are not equivalent problems in the slightest.
Ugh, the conciousness guys give the whole field of neuro-biology
a bad name. Everyone goes "oh, neuroscience, that's cool, but YOU
DON'T UNDERSTAND LOVE AND CONSCIOUSNESS LALALALALALA" because
that's the only side the science media ever talk about.
