Jason
I would think normally the implant should work as well. Being
Bajorean, could the missing essence be the influence of the Prophets?
Data and the EMH should be able to pass the Turing test.
Maybe I am missing something. A matter human in a matter universe
should function the same as an antimatter human in an antimatter
universe, AFAIK
Ronald
On Dec 18, 12:57 pm, Jason Resch jasonre...@gmail.com wrote:
Ronald,
I remember that episode. I thought it was quite a departure from the
atheistic slant that was usual to star trek.
( For those not familiar with the
scene:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihdI8U9eS4c#t=2m30s)
They seemed to suggest in the episode that the operation failed not because
of a defect in the artificial brain but because there was something more to
the mind that the machine didn't capture, some soul or some essence that
couldn't be copied. This is contrary to the frequent use of transporters
throughout the series, unless you accept something like biological
naturalism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biological_naturalism), the idea
that only biochemistry has the right stuff or can do the right things to
create consciousness. I don't think the writers of that episode were well
versed in philosophy of mind, so I wouldn't put too much stock in the ideas
they promote. For that episode to make sense you either have to accept
dualism or biological naturalism (which is almost like a form of dualism).
Do you think that Commander Data, whose entire brain is positronic, lacks
consciousness? I like the argument Picard gave for Data's
sentience:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWNPeNEvMN4
You mentioned that you had no problem with the idea of a person made from
anti-matter particles. What if scientists invented tiny machines that were
not atoms but operated all the same, would you accept that you could build a
person using these? Taking the idea slightly further, lets say these little
faux-atoms were expensive, so scientists decided to model the machines in a
computer rather than make them. Simulating a small number of them together
they could predict how nano-machines behaved. If the scientists modeled a
much larger collection of these atoms, organized in the same way as in a
person, do you think any of the complexity is lost?
Jason
On Sat, Dec 18, 2010 at 8:05 AM, ronaldheld ronaldh...@gmail.com wrote:
Bruno and Jason
The complexity issue concerns me, perhaps because of the Deep space
9 episode:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Life_Support_(Star_Trek:_Deep_Space_Nine)
Ronald
On Dec 16, 11:39 am, Jason Resch jasonre...@gmail.com wrote:
On Wed, Dec 15, 2010 at 7:57 AM, ronaldheld ronaldh...@gmail.com
wrote:
Jason:
I do not think a neutron take more trhan a finite amount of voltage
to be able to fire. I do wonder if merely replacing the bio parts by
processing hardware, do you lose the part of the complexity of the
mind? Np problem with an antimatter man and mind.
If the mechanical replacements have the same repertoire and behavior as
the
biological parts I don't see how the complexity would be lessened. Many
people feel lessened to be thought of as a machine, but they probably
don't
fully appreciate just how complex of a machine the brain is. It has 100
billion neurons (about 1 for each stars in this galaxy) and close to 1
quintillion connections or 1,000,000,000,000,000 (about 1 connection for
every cent of US debt). People aren't familiar with man-made machines
anywhere near this level of complexity and so it is understandable that
one
could doubt a machine acting like a human. However, I think this is
mainly a
prejudice instilled by the types of (comparatively simple) machines we
deal
with on a daily basis.
Jason
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