X-Message-Number: 11594
From: 
Date: Wed, 21 Apr 1999 23:43:25 EDT
Subject: emulations and living books

Although this is essentially MEGO rehash, my hope is to find some way to 
convey my view effectively--or else have someone convince me of the error of 
my ways.

I had said (yes, often) that a Turing computer is extremely unlikely to be 
able to emulate a person, because (in addition to other reasons), it cannot 
produce simultaneous effects or results in real time. Mike Perry has said 
again that:

>[A Turing computer] can't produce "real" effects, that is, but only a 
process that is >in some sense isomorphic. As far as I can see, though, that 
would still allow it to >simulate a person, at least in principle, because, 
once again, such effects as "real" >parallel processes could be simulated 
sequentially, and the
>simulated beings would have no way of knowing the difference, therefore it
>effectively wouldn't exist--for them.

But we can't assume in advance the existence of the phenomenon at 
issue--emulations in  computers. IF they exist, IF such partial isomophism is 
enough, then certainly they won't notice the difference. But IS this kind of 
partial isomophorism enough? To see that it probably isn't, think again not 
of an electronic computer, but of the Turing ur-computer, a paper tape and 
accessories. The square under the read/write head is read or written; the 
tape is moved one square forward or back; etc. Now:

WHEN (from an outside, objective point of view) does the emulated person 
notice something or feel something or have an experience? 

When there is reading or writing going on? Hardly, because these are "events" 
in the programmer's world, not in the putative emulation's world; during the 
act of reading or writing there are no changes in the recorded sets of 
numbers or data stores that correspond to the mental state of the emulation.

When the tape is moving?  No, for the same reason.

After a mark on the tape has been written or erased, i.e. a new number 
recorded? No. First, most new numbers are either just intermediate 
"scratch-paper" calculations or just PORTIONS of a description of a new 
mental state. Second, a mere number, or set of numbers, could scarcely 
CONSTITUTE a mental state, even if it could represent one. If a set of 
numbers could BE a mental state, then a book full of numbers could be a 
person, and a stack of books could be a person living a life.

The notion of a book being a person seems wrong, not just because it is 
bizarre, but because a book just doesn't have the attributes of a living 
being.

I do admire the courage of the strong AI people, who follow what they see as 
logic to the bitter end, regardless of apparent absurdity. And it will 
probably remain difficult to prove that their emulations don't make sense, so 
long as our "real" world doesn't make complete sense yet either. But unless 
the specific objections above can be persuasively answered, I think strong AI 
is fighting a losing battle.

Robert Ettinger
Cryonics Institute
Immortalist Society
http://www.cryonics.org

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