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From: djts@dcs.ed.ac.uk (David Sumpter)
Subject: Re: Thought Question
Message-ID: <D1zE6p.30p@dcs.ed.ac.uk>
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Organization: Department of Computer Science, University of Edinburgh
References: <3dfhkq$gov@news.worldlink.com>  <3ec1o8$sno@agate.berkeley.edu>
Date: Fri, 6 Jan 1995 11:20:48 GMT
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Xref: glinda.oz.cs.cmu.edu comp.ai.alife:1666 comp.ai.philosophy:24379 comp.ai:26268

In article <3ec1o8$sno@agate.berkeley.edu>, <jerrybro@uclink2.berkeley.edu> writes:
> In <34@reservoir.win-uk.net> shane@reservoir.win-uk.net (Shane McKee) 
> writes: 
> 
> >I still haven't had anybody (including Roger Penrose) give me a
> >good reason why the human brain can't be regarded as a computer.
> >OK, so the mind sometimes doesn't work algorithmically, but its
> >constituent molecules do obey known (or at least simulable)
> >physical laws. Why -can't- intelligence be an emergent property of
> >an underlying algorithmic process involving these constituents?
> 
> You're confusing two separate issues.  One is, whether the brain
> can be regarded as a computer.  The other is, whether the brain
> can be simulated on a computer (because physical reality can).
> An atomic explosion can be simulated on a computer, but it does
> not follow from this that the atomic explosion can be regarded
> as a computer.
> 

But Penrose does actually argue that a brain can NOT be simulated by a computer, let
alone the computer be considered a brain.

David

