From: mark@unicorn.com
Date: Mon Jun 21 1999 - 06:43:22 MDT
Harvey Newstrom [newstrom@newstaffinc.com] wrote:
>The scenario is
>similar to a dismantled PC where the human manually predicts what the PC
>output would look like, and then prints that out put on a piece of paper and
>tapes it to the front of the PC. Is the PC still running Windows? Just
>because the system is getting input and output, the PC is still dead.
>Humans are predicting the results and rearranging the brain or PC to look
>like it is in that state. There is no program running in either example.
Ok, let's suppose that I install SoftWindows on an Alpha workstation. All
the software does is automatically predict what the PC output would look
like, and then display its prediction on-screen. Is the PC still running
Windows?
Or further; the Pentium-II seems to be basically a RISC chip with a frontend
which translates 80x86 instructions into RISC instructions. All the RISC
chip does is predict what a real 80x86 would do and output what it thinks
the real chip would do. Is the Pentium-II still running Windows?
Or is this entire question meaningless?
>Suppose I replace all the neurons with pieces of yarn. Everybody then sends
>input to their piece of yarn on schedule. Would anybody argue that these
>pieces of yarn now constitute a conscious brain?
If the output is identical to that of the brain its modelling, then the
entire system is effectively a 'conscious' brain.
Mark
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