Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site mmintl.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!gamma!epsilon!zeta!sabre!petrus!bellcore!decvax!genrad!panda!talcott!harvard!cmcl2!philabs!pwa-b!mmintl!franka From: franka@mmintl.UUCP (Frank Adams) Newsgroups: net.philosophy Subject: Re: Sc--nce Attack (self-awareness) Message-ID: <699@mmintl.UUCP> Date: Wed, 31-Dec-69 18:59:59 EDT Article-I.D.: mmintl.699 Posted: Wed Dec 31 18:59:59 1969 Date-Received: Sat, 5-Oct-85 07:45:43 EDT References: <45200016@hpfcms.UUCP> <1605@pyuxd.UUCP> <491@spar.UUCP> <1635@pyuxd.UUCP> <1128@ames.UUCP> <514@spar.UUCP> <1680@pyuxd.UUCP> <541@spar.UUCP> Reply-To: franka@mmintl.UUCP (Frank Adams) Organization: Multimate International, E. Hartford, CT Lines: 40 [Not food] In article <541@spar.UUCP> ellis@max.UUCP (Michael Ellis) writes: > Excerpts from `Minds, Brains, Programs': [by John Searle] > > The problem with a brain simulator is that it is simulating the > wrong things about the brain. As long as it only simulates the > formal structure of the sequence of neural firings at synapses, it > won't have simulated what matters about the brain, namely its causal > properties, its ability to produce intentional states. This seems to me to be a rather large jump. I would assert that such a simulation simulates exactly what matters about the brain, namely its causal properties, its ability to produce intentional states. What are these things that a simulation of the neural firings fails to capture them? > ... > No one would suppose that we could produce milk and sugar by running > a computer simulation of the formal sequences in lactation and > photosythesis; but where the mind is concerned, many people are > willing to believe in such a miracle, because of ... a deep and > abiding dualism: the mind they suppose is a matter of specific > material causes in a way that milk and sugar are not. But no one would deny that we could produce [a performance of] a piece of music by having a computer generate the vibrations in the air which exactly match those of a real performance. It is not necessary to use the actual instruments of the original performance. The only dualism I believe in [in this context] is that between physical substance and information. The essence of milk and sugar is their substance; the essence of a mind or a piece of music is its structure. > Nope. But science forges ever onward, philosophical and psychological > speculation leading the way. ... or following behind. Frank Adams ihpn4!philabs!pwa-b!mmintl!franka Multimate International 52 Oakland Ave North E. Hartford, CT 06108 Brought to you by Super Global Mega Corp .com