On 2/14/2012 1:35 PM, John Clark wrote:
On Mon, Feb 13, 2012 Stephen P. King <stephe...@charter.net
<mailto:stephe...@charter.net>> wrote:
> To actually implement digital substitution, we would have to not
only match the functionally of the module internally but also
match the interactions of that module with the environment.
No, you'd only have to match he interactions with the environment,
what happens internally is inaccessible to us by direct observation.
And before you start yelling objections to that reflect on the fact
that other human beings are black boxes to us, we can hypothesize that
they have a internal life and we can hypothesize what it feels like to
be that other person, but we have no direct access to such things and
we can never know for sure if our hypothesis is right.
> Silicon does not have the same chemical properties as carbon
Silicon does not have the same chemical properties as the element
germanium either (although they are in the same column in the periodic
table as is carbon) and yet you can make transistors out of both and
in fact the first transistors were germanium. So is arithmetic
performed on a germanium computer different from arithmetic performed
on a silicon computer? Or can the atoms be treated as black boxes and
the important thing being the logic in the way the atoms are arranged
and thus the "4" a silicon computer produces to the question "how much
is 2+2" is the same "4" that a germanium computer produces?
The thing I don't understand is that everybody agrees that our
conscious experience is not at the level of carbon or silicon or
germanium atoms, or atoms of any sort for that matter, we are not
conscious of them and until a few centuries ago no conscious being
even knew they existed, and yet one and only one of those 3 atoms is
supposed to produce consciousness even though we are no more conscious
of that atom than the other two atoms. Quite frankly I think the idea
that 6 protons 6 electrons and 6 neutrons (carbon) is conscious but 14
protons 14 electrons and 14 neutrons (silicon) is not and can never be
no matter how you put such objects together is nuts.
John K Clark
Hi John,
You are completely missing the point. I don't have time to discuss
this any further with you. My apologies.
Onward!
Stephen
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