Regarding computers, there are two types of knowledge. You say "I know John Smith"
If you have actually met him, this is called knowledge by acquaintance. If you have just heard about him, this is called knowledge by desciption. Computers can't deal with the former, knowledge by acquaintance . since iot is an experience. They can only deal with the latter, which is a fact. Roger Clough, rclo...@verizon.net 9/17/2012 Leibniz would say, "If there's no God, we'd have to invent him so that everything could function." ----- Receiving the following content ----- From: Evgenii Rudnyi Receiver: everything-list Time: 2012-09-16, 03:44:48 Subject: Re: questions on machines, belief, awareness, and knowledge On 15.09.2012 21:56 meekerdb said the following: > On 9/15/2012 9:35 AM, Stephen P. King wrote: >> On 9/15/2012 4:11 AM, Russell Standish wrote: ... >> Hi Russell, >> >>> That is far too inclusive a definition of computation. >> >> Not really, it only requires some way of representing the >> information such that it can be transformed. The integers are not >> the only kind of number that we can represent numbers (or any other >> mathematical object) with. IMHO, we are naive to think that Nature >> is hobbled to only use integers to perform her Computations. We >> must never project our deficiencies on Nature. > > I would go even farther than Russell implies. A lot of the muddle > about computation and consciousness comes about because they are > abstracted out of the world. That's why I like to think in terms of > robots or Mars rovers. Consciousness and computation are given their > meaning by their effecting actions in the world. To find out what a > string of 1s and 0s means a Mars rovers memory you need to see what > effect they have on its actions. You know that "1+1=10" means 1+1=2 > when 10 in a register causes it to pick up two rocks. > > So to further abstract computation to mean "transformation of > information" will lead to even more of a muddle. > > Brent > So this is some kind of enactive model of consciousness, similar to what Alva No? writes in Out of Our Heads: Why You Are Not Your Brain, and Other Lessons from the Biology of Consciousness. One question in this respect. Let me start with a quote from Max Velmans, Understanding Consciousness Section Can qualia be reduced to the exercise of sensory-motor skills? p. 102 ?iloting a 747 no doubt feels like something to a human pilot, and the way that it feels is likely to have something to do with human biology. But why should it feel the same way to an electronic autopilot that replaces the skills exercised by a human being? Or why should it feel like anything to be the control system of a guided missile system? Anyone versed in the construction of electronic control systems knows that if one builds a system in the right way, it will function just as it is intended to do, whether it feels like anything to be that system or not. If so, functioning in an electronic (or any other) system is logically tangential to whether it is like anything to be that system, leaving the hard problem of why it happens to feel a certain way in humans untouched.? Do you mean that the meaning in a guided missile system happens as by-product of its development by engineers? To me, it seems that meaning that you have defined in Mars Rovers is yet another theory of epiphenomenalism. Evgenii -- http://blog.rudnyi.ru/2012/06/visual-world-a-grand-illusion.html -- 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. -- 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.
