X-Message-Number: 9305 Subject: Is a thought of a unicorn a real thought? Date: Tue, 17 Mar 1998 15:13:04 -0500 From: "Perry E. Metzger" <> > From: Ettinger <> > Using appropriate quantum terminology and spacetime coordinates, I > describe a hydrogen atom, far out in intergalactic space, in its > lowest energy state; then I describe a photon coming along and > exciting the atom. This might be done on a Turing tape; or I might Sigh. Mr. Ettinger, you are really recycling very old arguments, almost all of them stolen from Searle. As I've noted, though, Searle at least had a refreshing wit about him, and the advantage of having developed his arguments himself. > just use words spoken aloud. Have I, in some sense, created a > hydrogen atom? When I stop talking, or the tape stops moving, does > the atom go back to oblivion? Your (ancient) argument is "snce a simulation of a thing is not a thing, therefore a simulation of a mind is not a mind". I answer you very simply: A simulaton of a physical object is not the object, but in what sense is a simulation of a computation not a computation? Is a "simulation" of two numbers being added NOT the act of adding two numbers? If a simulation percieves a bird in its visual field, in what sense is that different from a non-simulation percieving the bird? Was the simulation detecting the bird "false" somehow? Or are you going to argue that a simulated summing of 2+2 produces only the "simulated" number 4 and not the "real" number 4? You are simply producing an endless series of attempts to get around simple facts. Unless you are a non-materialist, you must agree that all we are is an epiphenomenal result of neurons firing. Freeze the neurons, and the mind vanishes -- start them firing, and it reappears. What your argument, of necessity, comes down to is a religious belief that somehow a neuron firing is "special" -- that if I replaced a neuron in your head with an electrochemical machine that was functionally equivalent, somehow your consciousness would vanish (or that, at least, were I do do this neuron by neuron throughout your brain at some point your consciousness would vanish). From what *I* can tell, neurons are just little machines made out of carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen and a little sulfur and other elements. They are not blessed, they are not unusual, and there is nothing magic about them. They're just electrochemical switches. You are using a series of distractions to make us think that somehow, if we replaced that substrate with some other kind of switches, or even a functional simulation, that somehow something would be lost. Until you can point at the "vital fluid" that mysteriously makes up consciousness, I'm afraid I'll have to continue to conclude that there is no special magic going on here and that the whole thing is just a mechanical process, which could be performed by another substrate just as I can happily replace a test tube with a flask or a TI calculator with a Casio. Perry Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=9305