From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!torn!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!olivea!uunet!mcsun!news.funet.fi!hydra!klaava!amnell Mon Oct 19 16:59:20 EDT 1992
Article 7285 of comp.ai.philosophy:
Path: newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!torn!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!olivea!uunet!mcsun!news.funet.fi!hydra!klaava!amnell
>From: amnell@klaava.Helsinki.FI (Marko Amnell)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Simulated Brain
Message-ID: <1992Oct15.095211.10805@klaava.Helsinki.FI>
Date: 15 Oct 92 09:52:11 GMT
References: <1992Oct12.224008.16222@news.media.mit.edu> <1992Oct13.085347.13831@klaava.Helsinki.FI> <26893@castle.ed.ac.uk>
Organization: University of Helsinki
Lines: 39

In article <26893@castle.ed.ac.uk> cam@castle.ed.ac.uk (Chris Malcolm) writes:
>In article <1992Oct13.085347.13831@klaava.Helsinki.FI> amnell@klaava.Helsinki.FI (Marko Amnell) writes:
>
>>I'm open to the possibility that a machine
>>(conceived of in the reductionist way you suggest) could think, but does
>>this automatically mean that its mind would be imbued with the same
>>conscious experiences that accompany our thoughts, in all their wondrous
>>splendour?  What I'm saying is that maybe machines could one day think,
>>but they still wouldn't be conscious in the way we are.
>
>Dennett's ingenious and interesting answer to this question is to
>suggest that neither these thinking machines nor we ourselves are
>conscious in the way we think we are, but that there are good reasons
>why we, and they, could both be subject to the same kind of illusion:
>not an illusion in the sense of a folly, but a useful illusion, a user
>illusion, a virtual machine, which simplifies the operation of the
>brain.

Some illusion!  The point I was making is that an artificial brain, say
a computer built according to recursion theory, no matter how complex,
is still based on a certain model of what a mind is.  There is no
guarantee that this model captures _all_ features of a real mind.  A
real mind may have capacities that far outstrip such a machine.  Or
again, it may not.  Who knows?  But it is not prima facie obvious to me
that a machine would have the same capacity for eg. imagination and
creativity that we have.  The Computer is only the latest model of
Man; we have rejected so many earlier models in the past that it might
be wiser to maintain a healthy skepticism about the latest paradigm.
Perhaps there really is something unique about Carbon-based life.
I note that there is no real AI yet, so there is no evidence on either
side of the issue, there are only 'techno-romantics' and 'humanistic-
romantics' as a French philosopher once put it.  Which side is right
remains to be seen.  Personally, I'm trying to keep an open mind on
the subject.

-- 
Marko Amnell
amnell@klaava.helsinki.fi
Graduate Student in Philosophy


