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Article 6158 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: clarke@acme.ucf.edu (Thomas Clarke)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Transducers: The Retina is Part of the Brain
Message-ID: <1992Jun8.182750.2964@cs.ucf.edu>
Date: 8 Jun 92 18:27:50 GMT
References: <1992Jun6.153132.25456@Princeton.EDU>
Sender: news@cs.ucf.edu (News system)
Organization: University of Central Florida
Lines: 38

In article <1992Jun6.153132.25456@Princeton.EDU> harnad@phoenix.Princeton.EDU  
(Stevan Harnad) writes:
> Two other points:
> 
> (1) For the record, I don't believe QM has anything whatsoever to do
> with cognitive modeling. One field's mysteries cannot minister to the
> mysteries of another. Two mysteries do not make an insight, just more
> mist.
> 
> (2) I systematically ignore all the postings about the possibility that
> you or I may be figments of some virtual imagination, etc. etc. 

First I basically agree with what I take to be (at least part of) your thesis:   
mind must be explained in the context of the physical world.

Hence I brought up 1) as a defense against 2).  

It seems to me that given the ability ot simulate the world Laplace-style
in a computer, then it is difficult to defend against 2).  Given Laplacian
omniscience, then the external world can be simulated perfectly so that the
mind interacting with this external computation is purely computational.  
This computational mind is identical to the physically grounded mind up to
mathematical isomorphism.  From a philosophical standpoint it does not
matter that a Laplacian simulation would take more computational resources
than are available within the visible universe.

>You have to understand the appearance/reality first...

Laplace's vision is impossible of course.  The means to demonstrate this
impossiblity is through the current understanding of quantum mechanics and
chaotic dynamics.  Quantum mechanics is thus a "concrete" scientific 
example of the differnce between appearance/reality and virtual 
simulation thereof.
--
Thomas Clarke
Institute for Simulation and Training, University of Central FL
12424 Research Parkway, Suite 300, Orlando, FL 32826
(407)658-5030, FAX: (407)658-5059, clarke@acme.ucf.edu


