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>From: orourke@unix1.cs.umass.edu (Joseph O'Rourke)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy,sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Searle's response to silicon brain?
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Date: 18 Dec 91 10:53:43 GMT
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Reply-To: orourke@sophia.smith.edu (Joseph O'Rourke)
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Organization: Smith College, Northampton, MA, US
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Can anyone tell me if Searle has reacted to the counter-
Gedanken experiment of replacing each neuron in a brain
with a silicon, digital, neuron simulator?  As I understand
his position, he would have to maintain that such a modified
human does not understand what they utter, even though their
performance is no different from a normal human.
	More particularly, suppose that the I/O behavior of
a single neuron could be accurately simulated with a digital
computer on a chip: the signals it sends down its wires
(simulated axons) have the same effect as the signals a real neuron
would send given the same input stimulation.  This neuron chip operates 
under a computer program processed by a conventional CPU: so its
operation is completely different from the way a real neuron
works.
	Each neuron in the brain is replaced by an appropriate
neuron chip, with all of its axons replaced by wires connecting
to other neuron chips.  There are no neurotransmitters:  just
direct electrical connection.
	All of these 10^10 conventional digital computers operate
in parallel, but Searle maintains that that is irrelevant, because
they could all be simulated by one serial computer, and his Chinese
Room analogy still holds.  So one could view all these 10^10
computer programs on the neuron chips as one large program running
on one large conventional machine.
	It seems that Searle would have to say this silicon brain
is incapable of understanding, even though its observable behavior
is indistinguishable from that of a normal human.  Either that or he would 
have to maintain that it is impossible in principle to accurately 
simulate the I/O behavor of a single neuron with a digital computer.
	Surely I'm the umpteenth person to suggest this.  Has
Searle responded to it?  How?  And where?


