On 22 Apr 2013, at 19:14, Craig Weinberg wrote:
A quote from someone on Facebook. Any comments?
"Computers can only do computations for rational numbers, not for
real numbers. Every number in a computer is represented as rational.
No computer can represent pi or any other real number... So even
when consciousness can be explained by computations, no computer can
actually simulate it."
You can represent many real numbers by the program computing their
approximation. You can fan constructively on all real numbers (like
the UD does notably).
Only if a brain uses some non computable real number as an oracle,
with all decimals given in one "strike", then we cannot simulate it
with Turing machine, but this needs to make the mind actually infinite.
So the statement above is just a statement of non-comp, not an
argument for non comp, as it fails to give us what is that non
computable real playing a role in cognition.
But there is something correct. A computer, nor a brain, can simulate
consciousness. Nor can a computer simlulate the number one, or the
number two. It has to borrow them from arithmetical truth.
Bruno
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