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From: jqb@netcom.com (Jim Balter)
Subject: Re: A New Theory of Free Will -- continuation of an Open Letter to Professor Penrose
Message-ID: <jqbDLstq2.8M7@netcom.com>
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References: <jqbDLr4tF.AF@netcom.com> <4eand1$q6n@news.cc.ucf.edu>
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Date: Fri, 26 Jan 1996 17:25:14 GMT
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In article <4eand1$q6n@news.cc.ucf.edu>,
Thomas Clarke <clarke@acme.ist.ucf.edu> wrote:
>In article <jqbDLr4tF.AF@netcom.com> jqb@netcom.com (Jim Balter) writes:
>> In article <4e35bp$fqv@news.cc.ucf.edu>,
>> Thomas Clarke <clarke@acme.ist.ucf.edu> wrote:
> 
>> >Explain the sensation of the color red.
> 
>> What sort of explanation would you be willing to accept?  You might start  
>with
>> Harding's _Color for Philosophers_.  I don't see how introducing QM will make
>> for a more compelling explanation when people are seeking an explanation of
>> the wrong sort in the first place.
>
>To borrow from another posting of yours in this thread, an explanation
>along the lines that the perception is a epiphenomena like a game
>of chess would not satisfy me. If this is the right sort
>of explanation, then I have to disagree. 
>
>The explanation that I would like would be one that would enable
>one to actually build a conscious machine; like Hal in 2001, say.

I didn't ask you what the explanation would achieve, I asked you what type you
would accept.  I suspect that, like many, there is no explanation you would
accept until you grew out of an incoherent notion of qualia.  It is rather
hubristic to think that, just because a particular explanation doesn't satisfy
you, it doesn't suffice to build something.  BTW, what explanation do you
suppose Stanley Kubrick used to create his conscious machine?  That people can
ascribe consciousness to fictional movie constructs but not to hypothetical
Chinese Rooms and Humongous Jukeboxes indicates just how confused they are
about the issue.

>My suspician is that we will never be able to build such a machine 
>until we incorporate some quantum hardware into our computers.

I tried to point out that this is irrelevant to the *type* of explanation
that would seem satisfying.  I guess you just didn't get it.

Just in case you hadn't noticed, not only are the logic components of our
computers built from quantum devices, but so are the transducers.  Perhaps you
think this is the wrong sort of device.  What is the right sort of device, and
why?  This suspicion of yours seems to fit someone's (Putnam's?) comment about
Penrose, that the brain is mysterious, and quantum gravity is mysterious, so
there must be a connection.  What is the justification for the suspicion?
Surely not Penrose's fallacious arguments in SoTM.


-- 
<J Q B>

