From: Jonathan Colvin (jcolvin@ican.net)
Date: Wed Jul 22 1998 - 02:17:51 MDT
Eugene wrote:
>>I am of the "wet" school of consciousness. And how can you upload
> >norepinephrine?
>Very easily, that's called molecular modelling. In fact you would
>probably have to reach down as deep as ab initio, to validate the
>higher-order models in overlapping strides. Some people have already
>coupled MD with QM for realistic enzyme models.
Aha...but now we run into another problem. If consciousness is an emergent
property of "wet" systems..in other words, if the way we "feel" (as opposed
to the mere computational aspects of our brain function) is dependent on the
chemical aspects of our brain, then a computational model will not capture
the "wetness" of our consciousness. You can model the combustion of
hydrogen and oxygen on a computer, but it won't make a bang! Now I'm not
entirely convinced that consciousness is "wet" but it seems to be a
possibility that is quite neglected in AI discussion.
John Clark added:
>I'm not interested in chemicals only the information they contain, I want
the >information to get transmitted from cell to cell by best method and
few >would send smoke signals if they had a fiber optic cable.
A nice leather-bound paperback and a floppy disk can both contain the exact
same information, but the first is qualitatively different from the second.
It is possible that the qualia of consciousness is dependent on its
"wetness". You can simulate an explosion on a computer to an arbitrary
degree of accuracy, but it will never produce a shock wave. Is
consciousness more of a shock wave than a data representation? I'm not
sure, but its what I intuitively "feel". I can't think of a critical
experiment that can determine this, so it should be good for endless
philosophical debate...at least its not as boring as guns good/guns bad :)
Jonathan Colvin
jcolvin@ican.net
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