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