On Aug 17, 5:56 pm, meekerdb <meeke...@verizon.net> wrote: > > To continue the metaphor, that's like having an automatic car that > > knows how to drive on the roads and has a legal license plate being > > considered an American. > > No it is not. I wish you'd stop generating these phony analogies. An > car that knows how to drive on the roads is very far from having the > same input/output as an American.
The analogy works, you're just not getting it. There is no such thing as the 'input/output of an American'. You are giving the neurologist the omniscient perspective of a neuron. If you are studying the US from 10,000 miles away through a giant microscope, then what you think are 'Americans' are the automobiles that circulate around America. The things inside them might be DNA. > >> It's not clear whether Craig thinks that his spirit/free-will/sense > >> would be able to act on an artificial neuron and cause it to deviate > >> from strict physical determinism or not. > > > My guess is that the artificial neuron makes it's own sense, > > But, according to you, doesn't every natural neuron also make it's own > sense? But somehow it's is amenable to control by your > will/spirit/sense - it doesn't just follow the laws of physics and > chemistry. Each pixel on your screen makes it's own sense - color, intensity, but those properties are influenced by the image as a whole. The image is not actually the pattern of pixels on the screen, it is the experience of the human interpretation of that overall pattern. The pixels and the image neither control nor are controlled by one another, they share a common sense, but not the sense that the human observer experiences through the set of pixels as a whole and the multitude of pixels individually. > > it's just > > too primitive for what we would call free-will or feeling. It's more > > detection/reaction. It would be unable to fully contribute in the > > animal or human level sensorimotives of the brain, > > But it could if it were a mammalian neuron? How does it contribute, > over and above it's synaptically identical interface? Sure, a mammalian stem cell might work. Animals have free will and feeling. That's what it contributes, a larger interpretive bandwidth of the same synaptic activity. Feeling is not just 'an activity', it has to be someone or something that is doing the feeling. We know that we can have synaptic activity without being aware of it at all levels. An electronic neuron just doesn't have the full spectrum of figurative possibilities that the mammal cell has. You can watch black and white tv on a color screen, but you can't watch color on a black and white tv. Both have very similar electronics, and to a colorblind person, they are the same. Think of our imaging technologies as colorblind. They only see the most literal, exterior level. The color is viewed privately and figuratively. Craig -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
