X-Message-Number: 14901
Date: Sun, 12 Nov 2000 16:14:32 -0800
From: Lee Corbin <>
Subject: Simulating People and Animals

Thomas Donaldson wrote in Message #14891
>While I personally would say that in the sense of this previous
>question we ourselves are abstract beings, it most certainly does
>not follow that we can be treated as if we need not take any special 
>form ie. biological, for instance. Even a little reading on just how
>neurons work makes me wonder whether a computer in the present sense
>could really imitate us at all well.

Hello Thomas!  I hope that every thing is going well for you.
Let me immediately say that I continue to appreciate the notes
of caution that you insert into some of the rather enthusiastic
and perhaps excess chains of logic that some of us are prone to.
Your skepticism is valued indeed.

But I was wondering if you could be a little more precise about
what you mean regarding this paragraph of yours that I have just
quoted.  First, I totally agree that today's software and hardware
are totally inadequate to imitate people convincingly.  But I'm
not sure what you mean by "[any] computer in the present sense".

Of course, computers and programs running on them have been with
us just fifty years, not even a wink in evolutionary time.  Yet
almost every day we hear that transistors are getting smaller and
faster.  We are also subjected to many claims that materials
technology in general is advancing in many directions, among them
techniques that may improve to the point that even skin, teeth,
and eyes might be successfully simulated before long.

(By "computers", I also mean a finite set of sequential processors
of the Von Neumann architecture, in effect Turing machines of
advanced implementation.)

My question is:

Do you believe that it will never be possible for sets of computers
of the above description to take on the size and shape of a human body
and to successfully imitate a person?  That is, even if humanity's
total resources for the next billion years were dedicated to the project,
it simply will never be possible---no matter how small and fast
computers get and no matter how far materials technology proceeds---
for computers to successfully imitate animals and humans, to all
outward appearances and effects?

If you do, this will be a most extraordinarily powerful principle
deserving of great attention.  There are so many truly interesting
questions about it that can be asked. 


Thanks,
Lee

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