On 22 Nov 2008, at 22:10, Brent Meeker wrote:
>> If we apply the Conway's Life rule to all the cells, it seems like >> the >> creatures in the grid ought to be conscious. If we don't apply the >> Life rule to any of the cells, but just pull the data from our >> previously-created lookup table, it seems like the creatures in the >> grid are not conscious. But if we apply the Life rule to half of the >> cells and pull the other half from the lookup table, there will >> (probably) be some creature in the grid who has half of the cells in >> its brain being computed by the Life rule, and half being pulled from >> the lookup table. What's the status of this creature's consciousness? > > I don't think it's a relevant distinction. Even when the game-of- > life is > running on the computer the adjacent cells are not physically > causing the > changes from "on" to "off" and vice versa - that function is via the > program > implemented in the computer memory and cpu. So why should it make a > difference > whether those state changes are decided by gates in the cpu or a > huge look-up table? I agree. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
