From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!torn!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!olivea!sgigate!sgiblab!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!uwm.edu!daffy!uwvax!meteor!tobis Thu Oct  8 10:11:35 EDT 1992
Article 7149 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: tobis@meteor.wisc.edu (Michael Tobis)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Simulated Brain
Message-ID: <1992Oct7.205933.5138@meteor.wisc.edu>
Date: 7 Oct 92 20:59:33 GMT
References: <740@trwacs.fp.trw.com> <BARRY.92Oct6151915@chezmoto.ai.mit.edu> <26609@castle.ed.ac.uk>
Organization: University of Wisconsin, Meteorology and Space Science
Lines: 41

In article <26609@castle.ed.ac.uk> cam@castle.ed.ac.uk (Chris Malcolm) writes:
>In article <BARRY.92Oct6151915@chezmoto.ai.mit.edu> barry@chezmoto.ai.mit.edu (Barry Kort) writes:
>
>>Daniel Dennett ... saw no reason
>>why intelligence and consciousness could not reside in a sufficiently
>>powerful computer processor.

>I'm sure he intended the processor to be running suitable software :-)
>Given that rider, this is hardly controversial.

Um, I guess that depends who you ask. It's uncontroversial in North
Carolina that basketball is more interesting than hockey. Wrong, but
uncontroversial. :-)

There are certainly lots of folks who don't believe the point is proven.
Ignoring them while discussing the matter only with people who agree
with you may lead you to believe that you have a consensus opinion.

Even if you do have a consensus opinion, that doesn't mean it is true.

I would like to see some evidence for this view, rather than just serious 
demeanor, clipboards, lab coats and a deep voice, like an aspirin commercial.

> Contrary to popular
>opinion, even Searle of Chinese Roon fame agrees with that, as he made
>plain in the Jan 1990 edition of Scientific American.

Sorry, while I distinctly remember him going to great lengths to avoid being
called a dualist, he did maintain that a Turing machine was insufficient for
consciousness, and maintained a need for some sort of chemical process.

"a simulation of cognition will ... not produce the effects of the 
neurobiology of cognition. All mental phenomena, then, are caused by 
neurophysiological processes in the brain. ... Any artifact that produced
mental phenomena ... could not do that just by running a formal program."
[op.cit. p. 29]

So unless you are using a broader than usual definition of "computer",
your representation of Searle's opinion is inaccurate.

mt


