[p2p-research] is the mind a computer

[Stan Rhodes]

The quote I singled out at the bottom of this email is laughable to anyone
who's passingly familiar with cognitive science.  The rest is equally
laughable, but I picked out that single quote because it seems to defy even
common sense.  This fellow does not understand evolution or cognitive
science at all.

Finding someone on the internet that disagrees with a conclusion is just
exercising confirmation bias.  If you don't know if the author's correct,
then you're not making an argument.  One can find internet fertilizer for
any viewpoint or counter-viewpoint, no matter how absurd or ignorant.

A computer just manipulates information according to some set of
instructions.  I don't see how the brain doing that is controversial or even
remarkable in 2009.  If we're going to compare it to a modern PC, that's
something else altogether.  I also don't see anyone in the list with the
expertise to have a thorough discussion about the nuts and bolts, or
perhaps, neurons and dendrites.  It also seems way, way outside the scope of
the list.

Cherry-picking links to create an air of controversy, particularly when you
are not willing to explore and understand the concept in depth, is
irresponsible and inappropriate for reasonable discussion.

-- Stan

On Sat, Nov 7, 2009 at 10:07 AM, Michel Bauwens <michelsub2004 at gmail.com>wrote:

> J. Andrew claims that it is an undisputed scientific and mathematical fact
> that the human brain is a computer, and that critique of it is borne of
> ignorance.
>
> For those who may be tempted to believe that false claim, here is a
> sophisticated treatment, to long to reproduce in full, see
> http://www.ime.usp.br/~vwsetzer/AI.html<http://www.ime.usp.br/%7Evwsetzer/AI.html>
>
> *Valdemar W. Setzer*
> Dept. of Computer Science, University of São Paulo, Brazil
> vwsetzer at usp.br - www.ime.usp.br/~vwsetzer<http://www.ime.usp.br/%7Evwsetzer>
>
> some very short excerpts to give you a flavour:
>
> Finally, apparently our memory is infinite; there is no concrete machine
> with infinite memory.
>
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