-----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Stathis Papaioannou Sent: Monday, May 18, 2015 10:07 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: Reconciling Random Neuron Firings and Fading Qualia
On 19 May 2015 at 14:45, Jason Resch <[email protected]> wrote: > > > On Mon, May 18, 2015 at 9:21 PM, Stathis Papaioannou > <[email protected]> > wrote: >> >> On 19 May 2015 at 11:02, Jason Resch <[email protected]> wrote: >> >> > I think you're not taking into account the level of the functional >> > substitution. Of course functionally equivalent silicon and >> > functionally equivalent neurons can (under functionalism) both >> > instantiate the same consciousness. But a calculator computing 2+3 >> > cannot substitute for a human brain computing 2+3 and produce the >> > same consciousness. >> >> In a gradual replacement the substitution must obviously be at a >> level sufficient to maintain the function of the whole brain. >> Sticking a calculator in it won't work. >> >> > Do you think a "Blockhead" that was functionally equivalent to you >> > (it could fool all your friends and family in a Turing test >> > scenario into thinking it was intact you) would be conscious in the >> > same way as you? >> >> Not necessarily, just as an actor may not be conscious in the same >> way as me. But I suspect the Blockhead would be conscious; the >> intuition that a lookup table can't be conscious is like the >> intuition that an electric circuit can't be conscious. >> > > I don't see an equivalency between those intuitions. A lookup table > has a bounded and very low degree of computational complexity: all > answers to all queries are answered in constant time. > > While the table itself may have an arbitrarily high information > content, what in the software of the lookup table program is there to > appreciate/understand/know that information? Understanding emerges from the fact that the lookup table is immensely large. It could be wrong, but I don't think it is obviously less plausible than understanding emerging from a Turing machine made of tin cans. Yes... but, the table's "immensely large" is a measure of its capacity to store information. A complex real time system also requires the ability to handle immense scale of throughput; for example our sensorial streams. Without a capacity for scaling up in the dimension of capacity to handle streams of information all one can ever end up with is a mass storage system (bottlenecked by its limited capacity for handling throughput) We could never experience the exquisitely rendered reality we all perceive -- from the vantage pint of our privileged inside looking out point of view -- were it not for the incredible parallelism accelerated ability of our advanced (for this planet) brains to process reality *as it happens*! Our brains are not only big in their ability to store information; they are incredibly powerful parallel processors that chew through massive real time streams, performing all manner of pattern detection matching; memory recall operations, decisional executive processing, memory update and commit operations. For every thought we are consciously aware of, a vast parallelized self-error correcting distributed processing and quorum based decisional neural network has been in operation. Ability to handle massive throughput matters! Chris de Morsella -- 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. -- 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.
