On 2/16/2012 4:49 PM, Stephen P. King wrote:
On 2/16/2012 4:00 PM, acw wrote:
On 2/16/2012 20:40, Stephen P. King wrote:
On 2/16/2012 2:32 PM, meekerdb wrote:
On 2/16/2012 11:09 AM, Stephen P. King wrote:
All of this substitution stuff is predicated upon the possibility
that the brain can be emulated by a Universal Turing Machine. It
would be helpful if we first established that a Turing Machine is
capable of what we are assuming it do be able to do. I am pretty well
convinced that it cannot based on all that I have studied of QM and
its implications.
This where the paradox of the philosophical zombie arises. It seems
pretty certain that a TM, given the right program, can exhibit
intelligence. So can we then deny that it is conscious based on
unobservable quantum entanglements (i.e. those that make its
computation classical)?
Brent
So is intelligence and consciousness, ala having 1p, qualia and all that
subjective experience stuff, the same thing in your mind?
Surely they must be related. If not, you do indeed get the p. zombie problem: someone
who acts in all respects like a different person with (assumed) consciousness,
indistinguishable in behavior, yet without consciousness. The question boils down to:
let's say you knew some person well, they one day got a digital brain transplant, they
still behave more or less as you remember them, do you think they are now without
consciousness or merely that their consciousness is a bit changed due to different
quantum entanglements?
Hi ACW,
Craig is making a good argument about this very issue. But I will not speak for him.
My issue here is that it seems that you do not appreciate what is actually necessary to
do a digital substitution. While whether or not the brain has quantum stuff going on can
be put aside, the entire universe is quantum mechanical and not classical therefore any
operation that we imagine doing has to be consistent with the strictures of QM or it is
a fantasy.
But QM is consistent with some things (almost all big things) being almost exactly
classical. There is no reason to think our brains depend on non-classical processes to
perform computations (metabolism - yes, computation - no). Certainly it would be a severe
evolutionary disadvantage if there were more than a just a little randomness in the
function of a brain.
Classical teleportation is, like classical substitution, simply a pipe dream.
Makes no sense!? Being classical is exactly what allows teleportation and functional
substitution.
Brent
Onward!
Stephen
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