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