Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!brutus.cs.uiuc.edu!psuvax1!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!nanotech From: jhallen@wpi.wpi.edu (Joseph H Allen) Newsgroups: sci.nanotech Subject: Re: Brain as Database Message-ID: Date: 21 Mar 90 04:19:39 GMT Sender: nanotech@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Worcester ,MA Lines: 74 Approved: nanotech@aramis.rutgers.edu In article hcobb@walt.cc.utexas.edu (Henry J. Cobb) writes: > One way to look at the problem of "What does it mean to have a Good >copy of my brain?" Is to consider the Brain as a database machine. > Under this analogy experience is the data, and personality is the >'method' used to index into the database. But experience is not stored as >'flat text', but rather as part of the program. > A literal copy of the brain would run, but at no real improvement. >The 'clock' could be upped, but this would be just like having more time to >think. I'd call that an "improvement". > The obvious first thing to do would be to add more data directly to >the database. This would imply that we could do the same thing in the organic >system, and tends to imply that we are therefore 'smarter than ourselves' >and this leads to paradox. 'Tends' is indeed the proper word here. Paradoxi(?) of this type only occur when a system is out of memory and when the data stored in the system is perfectly compressed. The other paradox which people bring up from time to time is "Can we understand ourselves"? Both of these arise from two types of confusion: (1) people find it difficult to understand that something can be "tagged" I.E., to "perfectly" understand something implies that you know where each atom is at every instance of time. If it was this type of "perfect" understanding then the argument would hold. However, we use tags (names) for complex things and gloss over unnecessary details (platonic). (2) Even when "perfect" understanding is specified people have trouble with data compression. I.E., can we have a complete copy of our brain stored in our brain? Indeed we can not (except for trivial cases). But we can have an _old_ copy of our brain stored in our brain (I.E., _old_ meaning before you include the copy as being part of the brain). This can be done by compressing the data within the brain and storing the compressed form in some unused area (and compressing unused areas is easy: "this area of 500MB is unused"= only 28 bytes) > So you could give your pet brain an extended storage of "flat data" >to read, but unless it is clocked much higher than we are it is difficult >to see how such a system would faster than you with a terminal. Of course there's the minor problem of not knowing exactly (well not quite that strong) how we work. > Lastly we might work on "tightening the code". But if you force a >change of thinking on the pet, how then is it still you. Also this implys >that we can improve the brains we already have, by being smarter than >ourselves. (See above) Defining boundaries is an interesting problem. What exactly do you mean by "you"? The data in your brain at some particular instance of time? All the data from your entire lifetime? Only the part that makes up the "personality"? What I'm getting at is that we are contantly changing and what we call ourselves today does not refer to the exact thing we called ourseves yestarday. So what if I change myself at some fundamental level? Who are you to say that I'm not the "same" person? > I conclude that no real advantage is to be gained from a "thinking >machine", Why so derogatory? Or do you think that we _aren't_ thinking machines? > and that that it is best to just provide the ~5 billion people >we already have with the tools and training to undertake whatever "thinking" >needs be done. And I conclude that there are quite a few advantages that can be gained, as the moderator lists. -- "Come on Duke, lets do those crimes" - Debbie "Yeah... Yeah, lets go get sushi... and not pay" - Duke