From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!idtg!dow Wed Dec 18 16:02:42 EST 1991
Article 2239 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: dow@idtg.UUCP (Keith Dow)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Searle's response to silicon brain?
Message-ID: <356@idtg.UUCP>
Date: 18 Dec 91 17:28:03 GMT
References: <40822@dime.cs.umass.edu> <40825@dime.cs.umass.edu>
Organization: Integrated Device Technology, Santa Clara
Lines: 39

In article <40825@dime.cs.umass.edu> yodaiken@chelm.cs.umass.edu (victor yodaiken) writes:
>In article <40822@dime.cs.umass.edu> orourke@sophia.smith.edu (Joseph O'Rourke) writes:
>>Can anyone tell me if Searle has reacted to the counter-
>>Gedanken experiment of replacing each neuron in a brain
>>with a silicon, digital, neuron simulator?  As I understand
>>his position, he would have to maintain that such a modified
>>human does not understand what they utter, even though their
>>performance is no different from a normal human.
>
>What is it with the hatred of science expressed by so many of you AI types?
>There is no evidence to suggest that silicon digital neuron simulators can
>mimic real neurons or that mind is no more than than the product of
>some quantity of digital computation. One might as well ask whether 
>Einstein ever reacted to the counter-relativity experiment of sending 
>Tom Swift's rocket backwards through a black-hole. 




There you go with your dogma again.  There are tons of research papers that
support the idea that the brain can be simulated in part, if not in whole
using digital computers.  Where have you been?  




Get the classic series of books "Parallel Distributed Processing:
Explorations in the Microstructure of Cognition" by Rumelhart and
McClelland.  This will give you a good start on your homework so that
the next time you post, you will know what you are talking about.



What is this thing about hatred of science?  The AI work I have seen on
neural nets doesn't show it.  The people doing the work that I have talked
to enjoy it. 





