Searle asks:
"...does the digital computer give us the right picture of the human mind? And why is it that the social sciences in general have not given us insights into ourselves comparable to the insights that the natural sciences have given us into the rest of nature?"
-John Searle, Minds, Brains And Science (London, 1984), ONE, p. 13.
Dominic Flandry converses with a:
"'High-grade central computer - consciousness grade...'"
- Poul Anderson, A Circus Of Hells IN Anderson, Young Flandry (Riverdale, NY, 2010), CHAPTER TWO, p. 210.
Searle argues that any computer, however fast or powerful, merely manipulates symbols according to a programmed set of rules and that this process involves neither consciousness in general nor, more specifically, any knowledge or understanding of the meanings of the symbols. In order to become conscious, an artifact would have to duplicate brain processes.
Liquidity or wetness is a feature of water and is caused by interactions between many water molecules none of which is individually liquid or wet. Similarly, consciousness, including subjectivity, is a feature of a brain and is caused by interactions between many objectively observable neurons none of which is individually conscious. Artificial neural networks would be conscious.
Searle's second question above is relevant to Anderson's Psychotechnic History.
5 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I agree that computers merely manipulate symbols, according to pre-programmed sets of rules and are not conscious, self aware, volitional, etc.
As for the problem of how the mind relates to the brain, I think Anderson offers some interesting speculations about that in his tory "The Life Of Your Time," which I reread in THE DOOR TO ANYWHERE. It should be somewhere in one of your owe collections of Anderson's stories.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
See the post, "The Life Of Your Time," Monday 2 September 2013.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
I will! THAT long ago? I must have read it, but since forgotten I had.
Ad astra! Sean
I'm substantially in agreement. Making a computer more complex can -imitate- features of consciousness, but there's no "there there".
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I agree, altho I have sometimes been guilty of anthropologizing my old Radio Shack 2150L chess computer during chess games. I know it's not a conscious machine, but it has often made me feel stupid! (Smiles)
Ad astra! Sean
Post a Comment