X-Message-Number: 14795 Date: Sun, 29 Oct 2000 19:16:09 -0500 From: Thomas Donaldson <> Subject: computers and brains A brief comment on the various comments about turning humans into computers: 1. There are features of human (and other mammal & bird brains) which we'd have to duplicate before we tried to do this at all. I refer to creation of both new neurons and new connections, and their destruction; and the NUMBER of new neurons etc that get created is far beyond what a sequential computer could do. 2. More fundamentally, Kurzweil and others who talk about replacing human brains with computer brains completely fail to discuss desires and wishes, which play an essential role in ALL human thought. Given that they work differently in human brains from any kind of abstract thought (involving hormones etc) it's at least far from obvious that they can be imitated just like abstract thought can be imitated in a computer. We're not just thinking machines, we're FEELING machines too. And if you want to deal with this issue, go ahead. But it's far from sufficient just to claim that a parallel computer could imitate ANY kind of thinking or feeling simply because it is a computer, or even a computer attached to modules that let it deal with the real world. Best and long long life for all, Thomas Donaldson Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=14795