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From: snodgras@cts.com (John E. Snodgrass)
Subject: Re: Roger Penrose's New Book (in HTML) 1.0
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Date: Wed, 23 Nov 1994 07:26:26 GMT
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In article <3au8gn$fja@decaxp.harvard.edu> rmaimon@husc9.Harvard.EDU (Ron Maimon) writes:

>In article <3ar848$o5q@galaxy.ucr.edu>, baez@guitar.ucr.edu (john baez) writes:
>|> 
>|> Penrose makes it clear, at least in his talks on the subject, that he
>|> believes consciousness is a physical phenomenon.
>|>              Rather, he appears to believe it's a physical phenomenon
>|> that cannot be simulated using classical physics.

>Have you ever been faced with an opinion that is so wrong, you can't
>even bring yourself to argue with it?

      Never, though what follows comes close.

>there is no mystery in conciousness. The key question to ask is this-
>is it possible for a classical computer to simulate the _behavior_ of
>a person? If you can, you shouldn't look for mysteries, and it's pretty
>clear that you can just from the physiological structure of the brain.

      Of course, the physiological structure of the brain is an open book. 
That's why we have things like Alzhiemers and brain tumors and schizophrenia.

>people have a problem with this. They see themselves as a unit, that is
>indivisible and whole, and their mystical "essence" can't be explained
>just in terms of the computation needed to wriggle their toes.

        What computations are those?

>The key observation is to notice, as someone once observed, that you
>aren't one little person in your head, but many little people, each
>of them a little dumber then you. In the end, you are billions of
>little "people" each of them as dumb as a neuron, but you can feel
>the swarm of little conflicting tides in your mind, even when you
>are just sitting still. That's not one person- that's a massive
>computation- a configuration of billions of neurons.

      Deep. What is simple is not the physiology of the brain, but your 
concept of it. The neural net analogy is the lamest thing yet to come out of 
the Your Brain Used to Be A Switching Circuit, Now It's a Neural Net school of 
Let's Rip Off Computer Science for ideas in "scientific" psychology. Try to 
recall that the computer is the creation of the brain -- that computers were 
invented to offload information processing -- and maybe the reason there are 
analogies will dawn. What you're doing is taking at a boot and saying, 
"Goddamned if this doesn't look like a foot. Seems like as good a basis for 
theoretical podiatry as _I've_ seen!"

>And a neuron is the most classical thing in the world.

      No, a neural net is the most stupid way to program in the world.

      JES


