X-Message-Number: 410 From att!uunet.UU.NET!ghsvax!hal Wed Aug 28 10:53:33 PDT 1991 Date: Wed, 28 Aug 91 10:53:33 PDT From: ghsvax! (Hal Finney) To: Subject: Uploading in principle? I was very impressed by Alan Lovejoy's essay on whether uploading is possible in principle. He concludes that consciousness is essentially a symbolic process and that therefore uploading should theoretically be possible. Philosopher John Searle has for many years argued exactly the opposite. He claims that no purely symbolic activity can ever be conscious. His arguments are directed against Artificial Intelligence, but I think they would apply to uploaded intelligence as well. Searle calls his main argument the "Chinese room". I will take some liberties with it to consider the uploading case. Imagine that a Chinese speaking woman has been uploaded; a computer is simulating her mind at some level, perhaps the neuronal level. This computer is able, among other things, to read and write Chinese in an intelligent fashion just like the uploaded person had been able to. However, it is actually a computer running a program. Now, Searle argues that anything the computer can do, he should be able to do. In particular, he should be able to hand-simulate the actions of the computer - keeping track of the values in various program variables, updating them according to the rules of the computer program which might appear as a list of instructions he is to follow. By following these instructions, he is able to take in, say, questions written in Chinese, and eventually to produce answers written in Chinese, answers which would appear to come from the uploaded Chinese woman. (Of course, he would be much slower than the computer, but eventually the answers would appear.) The question is whether there is a conscious Chinese woman in this situation. Searle argues that the answer is no. He doesn't know any Chinese at all, yet by mechanically following this list of instructions, he is able to take Chinese questions and provide Chinese answers. Yet he certainly does not thereby become a Chinese woman. He still doesn't know a word of Chinese. Searle argues that this means that the kind of mechanical symbol manipulation that a computer does when it runs a program isn't enough for consciousness. It can "simulate" consciousness, perhaps, but there is no actual consciousness involved. It's all a game played with abstract symbols. [ One might ask whether or not normal human consciousness is a "mere" simulation played out in our wetware. If so, that may expand the range of possible scenarios for reanimation from cryonic suspension. - KQB ] Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=410