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From: harvard!codas!ki4pv!tanner@BU-CS.BU.EDU
Newsgroups: comp.society.futures
Subject: Re: Re: *IF*
Message-ID: <8806120535.AA26709@bu-cs.bu.edu>
Date: 11 Jun 88 01:42:42 GMT
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) Well Dr. Andrews, you may be right about programs physically existing,
) if you want to say electrical charges and magnetic flux count as
) physical. But the human mind is still similar in the aspect that it
) is a complex set of chemo-electrical impulses, ...

Not a bit of it.  The \fBbrain\fP is such a complex set of electro-
chemical impluses and reactions.  The \fBmind\fP, on the other hand,
is something which we have to date not fully defined.

Yes, I count electrical charges and magnetic flux as physical.  I can
measure them.  There is a direct mapping between the "thoughts" of
your vax (its program) and those charges and flux changes.

[ Remember the two clocks from philosophy 101?  One had hands, but
  no bell.  The other had a bell, but no hands.  If both are set
  accurately, when the large hand on the one points up, the other makes
  noise.  ]

Consider now your vax::program relationship \(em a single clock, with
wires to a bell.  At the proper time, the bell goes off because the
clock pushes in a switch.

On the other hand, the brain::mind (thought) relationship may more
closely resemble the two clocks of PHL101.  At any rate, I will grant
you that (with our current state of knowledge) we have no physical
whole which we can describe and (in principle) view and measure.

The lack of full physical understanding of the mind is what separates
it from the full understanding we have of the program.  People do
model computers, existing and otherwise.  One of the important uses
of computers is, after all, designing new computers.  If the AI types
wish to model a brain, I will grant the theoretical possibility.  It
may be slow and expensive, but it should be possible in principle.

It is also possible to model a program on a computer; an emulator for
another processor is the second most common case.  I do not grant
that it is yet possible to model thought, and I don't think that either
of us knows for certain that it will ever be possible.

(stability problem: I measure things by watching them on an infinitely
 fast scope.  Don't you wish you had a zillion-GHz memory scope? Me too)

					Dr. T. Andrews, Systems
					CompuData, Inc.  DeLand