From: hal@finney.org
Date: Wed Dec 12 2001 - 18:36:35 MST
Emlyn writes:
> I always find this metaphor unsatisfying. Particularly because, even though
> I might believe that we could create conscious intelligence from parts,
> those parts might not be in the form of a von-neumann computer. It may be
> the case that there are some quite stringent restrictions on the substrate
> for intelligence+consciousness, including stopping/restarting, wholesale
> copying around in memory (or whatever persistence mechanism was to be used),
> etc. There might be restrictions which entirely preclude running
> consciousness on a suped-up Pentium.
It's a general principle of computer science that all computers are
equivalent in their expressive power. What one computer can do, another
computer can simulate.
If it turned out that certain kinds of computers couldn't run conscious
programs but others could, that would invalidate this thesis. It would
mean that there were physical systems which could not be simulated by
conventional computers, that there is fundamentally more to the universe
than can be expressed by algorithmic modelling.
It's always possible that this may turn out to be true, but so far there
is no evidence of it. Even quantum systems can be simulated to any
desired degree of precision. And as far as we know the brain uses no
"magic physics," which this result would require.
So if it does turn out that consciousness is non-physical or cannot be
simulated by a computer, that will be contrary to all of our experience
and scientific understanding of the world. It will certainly be a
surprising result.
Hal
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