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Article 4220 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: weemba@libra.wistar.upenn.edu (Matthew P Wiener)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Beware of the vaporware salesmen
Message-ID: <68339@netnews.upenn.edu>
Date: 3 Mar 92 14:56:31 GMT
References: <1992Feb25.182526.12698@oracorp.com> <18595@castle.ed.ac.uk> <466@tdatirv.UUCP>
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Reply-To: weemba@libra.wistar.upenn.edu (Matthew P Wiener)
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In-reply-to: sarima@tdatirv.UUCP (Stanley Friesen)

In article <466@tdatirv.UUCP>, sarima@tdatirv (Stanley Friesen) writes:
>I think it remains true that what a brain does is to transform some input
>data into some output data (including muscle control signals), and that,
>since it only has access to an encoded representation of the data, this
>transformation can only be syntactic.

What is the internal representation of "self"?  "Privacy"?  "The natural
numbers"?  I fail to see any obvious anything that these encode.

>This statement is entirely consistant with what is curently known of
>neurobiology.  It may not be the last word, but it is certainly not (yet)
>disproven.  It is at least a reasonable point of view, given current
>knowledge.

That's about it.  There is no particular evidence for it, or against it.
It's a reasonable point of view.  Not much more.

>The only attempts I have seen to counter it are either inconclusive
>appeals to intuition ("the brain has unexplained properties, so it must
>have some mysterious mechanism to create them"), or appeals to the equally
>mysterious, and inexplicable, philosophy of quantum mechanics (aka the
>Copenhagen interpretation thereof).

Vaporware appeals to imaginary computer processes are just as ludicrous.

>While I do admit that the brain has unexplained capabilities, I am perfectly
>content to wait until they are explained to make any conclusions about what
>sort of mechanisms are involved.  And in the mean time, I see no reason
>to buy in to any one concept of them to the extent of deciding what
>computers can and cannot do.

Meanwhile, the burden of proof remains with those who peddle their amazing
computer capabilities.

But it's fun to make bets now.
-- 
-Matthew P Wiener (weemba@libra.wistar.upenn.edu)


