From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!ub!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!unix.cis.pitt.edu!pitt!geb Mon Dec 16 11:01:52 EST 1991
Article 2118 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: geb@dsl.pitt.edu (gordon e. banks)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: From neurons to computation: how?
Message-ID: <12687@pitt.UUCP>
Date: 14 Dec 91 14:06:54 GMT
References: <YdFv17K00Uh7M37M4C@andrew.cmu.edu>
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Organization: Decision Systems Laboratory, Univ. of Pittsburgh, PA.
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In article <YdFv17K00Uh7M37M4C@andrew.cmu.edu> fb0m+@andrew.cmu.edu (Franklin Boyle) writes:
>
>What is a machine, anyway?  Is there any reason to doubt that a
>brain is not a machine?
>
A machine is something that operates entirely by physical and natural
processes, I suppose.  A lot of people are uncomfortable with this
idea.  Same as evolution, I guess.  If man's body and now man's mind
can be explained without reference to God or man's soul, it is 
profoundly subversive to ideas that seem to be fairly deeply held
for centuries.  I don't think we want to scoff or mock at these
ideas, but neither should they stop us from pursuing a scientific
explanation for humans.


-- 
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Gordon Banks  N3JXP      | "I have given you an argument; I am not obliged
geb@cadre.dsl.pitt.edu   |  to supply you with an understanding." -S.Johnson
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