On Wednesday, May 14, 2014, LizR <[email protected]> wrote: Comp isn't really a theory, so testing it is a bit problematic. It's "just" > a logical argument which purports to show the consequences of taking > seriously the idea that brains are Turing emulable. >
Why do you think it can't be shown that brains are Turing emulable? So far, there has been no natural phenomenon discovered that isn't Turing emulable, as far as I'm aware. It also hasn't been shown as far as I'm aware that brains function using supernatural phenomena. So it seems a straightforward assumption, as straightforward as any other in science, that the brain is Turing emulable. It could be wrong, but no more likely wrong than anything else given the overwhelming evidence. Note that the brain being Turing emulable does not obviously imply you should say yes to the doctor, for it may yet be that the computerised brain is a zombie - consciousness is not a behaviour. However, it can be shown by a further argument that if the brain is in fact Turing emulable, then a computer reproducing the behaviour of the brain would also reproduce the brain's consciousness. So I guess if you want to say that consciousness is Turing emulable (which I think is an incoherent statement, but it's in the end just semantics), then you can, given all we know about physics and chemistry. -- Stathis Papaioannou -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
