From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.ecf!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!uunet!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!mips!pacbell.com!iggy.GW.Vitalink.COM!widener!netnews.upenn.edu!libra.wistar.upenn.edu Tue Nov 26 12:31:10 EST 1991
Article 1466 of comp.ai.philosophy:
Path: newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.ecf!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!uunet!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!mips!pacbell.com!iggy.GW.Vitalink.COM!widener!netnews.upenn.edu!libra.wistar.upenn.edu
>From: weemba@libra.wistar.upenn.edu (Matthew P Wiener)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: The limits of quantum simulation
Message-ID: <57084@netnews.upenn.edu>
Date: 21 Nov 91 15:47:33 GMT
References: <56836@netnews.upenn.edu> <4NqPBB1w164w@elrond.toppoint.de>
Sender: news@netnews.upenn.edu
Reply-To: weemba@libra.wistar.upenn.edu (Matthew P Wiener)
Organization: The Wistar Institute of Anatomy and Biology
Lines: 43
Nntp-Posting-Host: libra.wistar.upenn.edu
In-reply-to: freitag@elrond.toppoint.de (Claus Schoenleber)

In article <4NqPBB1w164w@elrond.toppoint.de>, freitag@elrond (Claus Schoenleber) writes:
>>[my critique about the limits of quantum simulation omitted]

>Consider, you can use even physical quantum effects to generate
>random values in a simulation. And then, why should it not be
>possible to get those effects to a similar working system with sort
>of consciousness (maybe depending on such quantum effects)?

I assumed that the simulations referred to were digital--we already
know of one analogue device that is (sometimes) intelligent.  And the
particular AI claim that digital software could be intelligent and/or
conscious is the claim that gets debated.

That is, I can't see any problems with using quantum devices to simulate
hypothetical quantum based models of consciousness.  There are possibly
inviolate physical obstructions to using a classical device to simulate
such models.

>BTW: If one cannot detect any difference between a system known as a
>simulation and a system known to be "real", where is the difference
>in quality?  Is human vanity to be the one and only known conscious
>beeing it worth to decrease the value of so called "simulations"?

This is better know as the Turing test.  That is another question, and
irrelevant to what I was talking about--my point being perhaps no such
simulation is possible by the laws of physics.

But there are other problems with the whole notion of simulation.  If
the mind is a Turing machine of some sort or other, then I'd agree that
the right program, being run on the right machine, qualifies as a bona
fide mind.  But if it's not, most of the AI enterprise will never be
more than very very clever programming.  Would Isaac Newton have been
considered the great genius if his approach to gravity were to construct
incredibly precise orreries?  ("Ah, that's what gravity is, these balls
moving in just so geardrivenlike orbits!")  Calculation and simulation
is certainly important for understanding numerous aspects of gravity,
but it isn't gravity itself.

After going into shell shock trying to read Edelman's trilogy, for
example, it's impossible for me to be interested in what a Dennett
might say.
-- 
-Matthew P Wiener (weemba@libra.wistar.upenn.edu)


