>-----Original Message----- >From: Stephen Paul King [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] >Sent: Friday, June 03, 2005 3:16 PM >To: [email protected] >Subject: Re: Functionalism and People as Programs > > >Dear Lee, > >----- Original Message ----- >From: "Lee Corbin" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >To: "EverythingList" <[email protected]> >Sent: Friday, June 03, 2005 12:20 AM >Subject: Functionalism and People as Programs > > >> Stephen writes >> >>> I really do not want to be a stick-in-the-mud here, but what do we >>> base >>> the idea that "copies" could exist upon? >> >> It is a conjecture called "functionalism" (or one of its close variants). >> I guess the "strong AI" view is that the mind can be emulated on a >> computer. And yes, just because many people believe this---not >> surprisingly >> many computer scientists---does not make it true. > >[SPK] > > I am aware of those ideas and they seem, at least to me, to be supported >by an article of Faith and not any kind of empirical evidence. Maybe that is >why I have such an allergy to the conjecture. ;-)
I think there is considerable evidence to support the view that human level intelligence could be achieved by a (non-quantum) computer and that human intelligence and consciousness are dependent on brain processes; e.g. see the many studies of brain damaged patients. Also, I think it is well established that consciousness corresponds to only a small part of the information processing in the brain. That's something that bother's mean about the discussion of "observer moments" with the implication that only the conscious "observation" matters. > >>[LC] >> An aspect of this belief is that a robot could act indistinguishably >> from humans. At first glance, this seems plausible enough; certainly >> many early 20th century SF writers thought it reasonable. Even Searle >> concedes that such a robot could at least appear intelligent and >> thoughtful to Chinese speakers. >> >> I suspect that Turing also believed it: after all, he proposed that >> a program one day behave indistinguishably from humans. Interestingly, Turing's actual proposal was to test whether a computer do as well posing as a woman as could a man. >And why not, >> exactly? After all, the robot undertakes actions, performs calculations, >> has internal states, and should be able to execute a repertoire as fine >> as that of any human. Unless there is some devastating reason to the >> contrary. > >[SPK] > > What I seem to rest my skepticism upon is the fact that in all of these >considerations there remains, tacitly or not, the assumption that these >"internal states" have an entity "to whom" they have a particular valuation. >I see this expressed in the MWI, more precisely, in the "relative state" way >of thinking within an overall QM multiverse. Additionally, we are still >embroiled in debate over the sufficiency of a Turing Test to give us >reasonable certainty to claim that we can reduce 1st person aspects from 3rd >person, Searle's Chinese Room being one example. > >>> What if "I", or any one else's 1st person aspect, can not be copied? >>> If the operation of copying is impossible, what is the status of all >>> of these thought experiments? I agree that for copying to be successful requires that what is copied is something classical. Tegmark makes more than an argument that brain processes are classical, he makes a calculation, quant-ph/9907009. So I don't think that's an in-principle barrier to copying. However, there might be other limits based on thermal noise etc that forbid copying finer than some crude level. >> >> I notice that many people seek refuge in the "no-copying" theorem of >> QM. Well, for them, I have that automobile travel also precludes >> survival. I can prove that to enter an automobile, drive it somewhere, >> and then exit the automobile invariably changes the quantum state of >> the person so reckless as to do it. > >[SPK] > > Come on, Lee, your trying to evade the argument. ;-) > >> [LC] >> If someone can teleport me back and forth from work to home, I'll >> be happy to go along even if 1 atom in every thousand cells of mine >> doesn't get copied. Moreover---I am not really picky about the exact >> bound state of each atom, just so long as it is able to perform the >> role approximately expected of it. (That is, go ahead and remove any >> carbon atom you like, and replace it by another carbon atom in a >> different state.) > >[SPK] > > If you care to look into teleportation, as it has been researched so >far, it has been shown that the "original" - that system or state of a >system - that is teleported is not copied like some Xerox of an original >document. > >http://www.research.ibm.com/quantuminfo/teleportation/ > > Such can not be done because *all* of the information about the system >or state must be simultaneously measured and that act itself destroys the >original. If *all* of the information is not measured, then one is not >copying or teleporting, one is just measurering. This is not overly >complicated! > >>> If, and this is a HUGE if, there is some thing irreducibly quantum >>> mechanical to this "1st person aspect" then it follows from QM that >>> copying >>> is not allowed. Neither a quantum state nor a "qubit" can be copied >>> without >>> destroying the "original". >> >> This is being awfully picky about permissible transformations. I >> have even survived mild blows to the head, which have enormously >> changed my quantum state. > >[SPK] > > Again, you are begging the point! The impact of air molecules change >one's quantum state! Perhaps we are stuck on this because we are assuming a >"still frame by still frame" kind of representation of the situation. The >quantum state of a system is continuously changing, that is why there is a >variable "t" in the Schroedinger eqation for a wavefunction! >I am commenting >about the absurdity of copying the quantum mechanical system itself, or some >subset or trace of it, other that that implied by the rules of QM. > >> >>> falsified, by the same experiments that unassailably imply that Nature >>> is, >>> at its core, Quantum Mechanical and not Classical and thus one wonders: >>> "Why >>> do we persist in this state of denial?" >> >> Probably for the same reason that some people continue to be Libertarians. >> It's a belief thing---the way you see the world. >> > >[SPK] > > Sure, and I hope that even Liberals can admit to errors in their beliefs >when presented with evidence and reasonable arguments to the contrary of the >assumptions within their beliefs. Libertarians are poles apart from Liberals on most questions of public policy - so I'm not sure who you're intending to disparage by "even". >I is when people engage in active denial >of matters of fact that persons like myself wonder about them. ;-) I don't see that any matters of fact have been denied. Certainly some non-facts have been speculated. Brent Meeker
