Hi Bruno Marchal
Yes, complete autonomy of the mind may not be possible, I agree,
but we seem to survive this problem.
My objection that sufficent computer autonomy may not be possible
to emulate life is still a doubt in my mind.
In both of these cases, the ultimate limitation might be language,
meaning words or the symbols of calculation. Peirce said that we
think in symbols. But symbols are Thirdness, the raw stuff
filtered (or distorted) from a particular point of view. Words
are known to be cultural products. Symbols of computation
depend on what a computation can do and how we define
the symbols, which I suppose goes back to the limitations
and distortions of words.
Let me try this:
1) Computer programs use selected symbols and program designs.
2) These symbols and designs are man-made and hence sometimes
distorted and imperfect. I admit that simple calculations can be perfect.
3) So computer programs are quite possibly reflections of whoever made the
program,
and of the distortions of computer language, not life itself.
In essence what I am saying here is that only a perfect being can create life.
But maybe I am being too hard on the possibilities or impossibilities.
A golem would still be interesting.
"Forever is a long time, especially near the end." -Woody Allen
----- Receiving the following content -----
From: Bruno Marchal
Receiver: everything-list
Time: 2012-10-02, 05:48:09
Subject: Re: Attacking the brain transplant experiment
On 01 Oct 2012, at 19:37, Roger Clough wrote:
> Hi Bruno Marchal
>
> A brain in a vat would probably have an autonomous self,
> which is needed for everything the brain does.
>
> I don't see how an autonomous self can be present in
> a computer, because autonomous means it can't depend
> on anything--- especially not hardware or software.
Only God does not depend on anything. An autonomous self depends can
only be partially autonomous, it depends on its brain, on its flesh,
on food, water, taxes, and many things, in its contingent terrestrial
manifestations.
Autonomy for any being (? God) is always relative to its self and its
neighboors.
>
> Let me also say it this alternate way. The output
> of an algorithm (let's say a choice, given an input)
> is always dependent on what the algorithm did.
> And algorithms are software.
But a software can change itself in an autonomous way, relatively to
its most probable universal numbers (arithmetical computers).
Bruno
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
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