Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cs.utexas.edu!ut-emx!churchh
From: churchh@ut-emx.UUCP (Henry Churchyard)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Hayes vs. Searle
Summary: what about Penrose book?
Message-ID: <31624@ut-emx.UUCP>
Date: 14 Jun 90 05:54:37 GMT
References: <16875@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> <2629@skye.ed.ac.uk> <3204@se-sd.SanDiego.NCR.COM>
Organization: The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas
Lines: 19

In article <3204@se-sd.SanDiego.NCR.COM> Jim Ruehlin writes:

>According to Searle in the Chinese Room paper, the difference is that
>human brain tissue has some "magical" (my word) quality that provides for
>intelligence/understanding/causitive powers, while mere silicon doesn't.

>It seems to me that this is the real point of his paper - brain mass is
>different from silicon mass in some fundamental way.  There's some
>molecular/atomic/?? quality or structure that makes brain mass causitive 
>and silicon not.  He may not have intended this, but thats what it comes
>down to, and it seems patently silly.  There was no evidence for this when
>he wrote his paper, and there still isn't.

    What about the Penrose book (_The_Emperor's_New_Mind_, 1989),
where he argues that brain tissue might be different because of
quantum mechanical effects.  I'm not saying that this position is
necessarily correct, but the argument has been seriously made.

                         --Henry Churchyard