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From: daryl@oravax.UUCP (Steven Daryl McCullough)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Artificial vs. ''real'' intelligence
Summary: The randomness of physical processes does not make them more
	 conscious than Turing machines.
Message-ID: <1582@oravax.UUCP>
Date: 2 Jul 90 22:48:17 GMT
References: <1990Jul2.182411.4441@king.mcs.drexel.edu>
Organization: Odyssey Research Associates, Ithaca NY
Lines: 24

In article <1990Jul2.182411.4441@king.mcs.drexel.edu>, jsmith@king.mcs.drexel.edu (Justin Smith) writes:
> The basic idea is:
> \item {1.} that the human brain is a {\it physical
> object}.
> \item {2.} Physical objects have the potential for
> performing activities that are not reproducible by a
> computer.

> [...stuff deleted...]

Justin, your argument, though correct in a certain sense, doesn't
address the issue of artificial intelligence at all, in my humble
opinion. It is certainly true that because of the inherent randomness
of quantum mechanics it is possible to create a physical process which
does something uncomputable. For instance, a random number generator
that uses radioactive decay will produce a sequence of numbers that
almost certainly would not be produced by any given Turing machine
program. However, why do you (or Penrose, for that matter) think that
such randomness has anything to do with consciousness? It doesn't seem
to contribute anything usefully noncomputable; for example, human
beings cannot solve the halting problem any more than Turing machines
can.

Daryl McCullough