X-Message-Number: 15004
From: "George Smith" <>
References: <>
Subject: Re: Give me proof.
Date: Thu, 23 Nov 2000 11:45:47 -0800

In Message #14990, Thomas Donaldson asked:

> So come on, guys. I have asked a very simple question: has anyone got
> a proof that human brains can be imitated (even if only abstractly)
> by a Turing machine.

YES!  BY AMERICAN POLITICIANS!  BUT ONLY IMITATED!

(Sorry.  Couldn't resist).

More seriously, Thomas Donaldson's comments are very much on target in my
opinion.

In particular I am fully in agreement with his concerns that simulation is
not necessarily duplication (my words).

I have posted several times now simply perceptual experiments (
http://www.headless.org )which can quickly demonstrate the profound
differences between what human beings PERCEIVE and what they THINK they
perceive.

If the consensus view of what perception is SUPPOSED to be is entirely
different from what is ACTUALLY experienced, those psychotic (yes, I DO
precisely mean "psychotic" and this word is not meant in any perjorative
sense) opinions will creep into the composition of any attempt at human
mental simulation.

Another example of this can come from a historical hypothesis posited by
Julian Jaynes in THE ORIGIN OF CONSCIOUSNESS IN THE BREAKDOWN OF THE
BICAMERAL MIND.  Jaynes suggested from the evidence of history that just
3000 years ago human beings were not conscious at all as we know it today.
If he is right then our current situation, the one we wish to sustain
through cryonics - personal identity - may be a very unusual and new quirk
found in our species only very recently.

Whether Jaynes is right or not, the issue seems to me to be quite simple.
"If it walks  like a duck and it quacks like a duck..."  it may still be a
platypus.  NOT a duck!

Simulations are not necessarily duplications and it is clear to me that what
99.99999999% of human beings call consciousness is NOT what they experience
subjectively at all.  At all!  Truly blind people should not be trusted to
edit television programs.  Right?

Just a cautionary note.

Best wishes,

George Smith

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