On 26 Jul 2011, at 14:58, ronaldheld wrote:
http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1107/1107.4028.pdf
Sorry about my title choice. Any comments?
Ronald
The author would be 100% correct, this is still computationalism. And
I agree with its critics of the computation *metaphor(s)*, which often
tries to imposes a choice of *one* universal machine on the brain,
when comp implies this is already false for physics.
So the paper might look like being against comp, but it works in the
comp theory (in the weak sense I propose) all along its paper. Its
critics against AI is very similar with the common one I have with
Colin (despite Colin *pretends* to be against comp, but it is not).
There is a big difference between saying there is a level where I am
digitally encodable, and saying things like the brain works like this
or that machine. We know that if comp is true we cannot know the
level. Werner might be wrong when he thinks he is the one finding the
right comp level.
Now for the way to tackle the functioning of the brain, I am agnostic
about Werner's proposal. It is still comp, and he might do the
implementation error done by those he is criticizing. He critics
representationalism, but he is not convincing (and comp does not need
it, but psychology itself makes it plausible: Here he is on the fringe
of person elimination, and without reason I van see relevant to its
model.
In that paper he avoids to talk on consciousness, and in his other
paper, he does the brain-mind identity error (in the comp context).
The brain does not speak for itself: only a person can do that, and a
person is not a brain, a person owns a brain.
His proposal *might* be correct, and even interesting for an
engineering point of view, but what it describe is a computation
machine, and if he is correct, physics is a branch of theology. He
might implicitly be physicalist though, and in *that* perspective, he
does eliminate consciousness and person.
To sum up don't confuse
- the belief that it exists a level n such that I am a machine at that
level (comp)
- It exists a level n such that I belief that I am a machine at that
level (a comp "metaphor")
Bruno
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
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