On Wed, Sep 5, 2012 at 11:48 AM, Craig Weinberg <whatsons...@gmail.com> wrote:
> yes, doctor: This is really the sleight of hand that props up the entire > thought experiment. If you agree that you are nothing but your brain > function and that your brain function can be replaced by the functioning of > non-brain devices, then you have already agreed that human individuality is > a universal commodity. We knew you didn't accept this, so the rest of the argument is irrelevant to you. However, I'm still not sure despite multiple posts what your position is on how much of your brain function could be replaced by an appropriate machine. Presumably you agree that some of it can. For example, if your job is to repeatedly push a button then a computer could easily control a robot to perform this function. And this behaviour could be made incrementally more complicated, so that for example the robot would press the button faster if it heard the command "faster", if that were also part of your job. With a good enough computer, good enough I/O devices and good enough programming the robot could perform very complex tasks. You would say it still does only what it's programmed to do, but how far do you think given the most advanced technology it could get slotting into human society and fooling everyone into believing that it is human? What test would you devise in order to prove that it was not? Stathis Papaioannou -- 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.
