What is the distinction you make between ‘machine’ and ‘computer’? Any machine can be simulated on a computer, and I would say that it can in fact be seen as a special-purpose computer, as well. To argue against this that you can’t drive a car built by a simulated assembly line is, I think, a bit of a level confusion: within the simulation, you could perfectly well do that, and that is the level on which the machine operates.
No, it’s the other way round. Computers are a subset of the set Machines. A computer is programmable, Turing-complete, has storage etc.
Assuming the brain works according to classical physics (and we can ignore quantum effects), then sure, I would expect that a computer could in principle simulate a mind. However, it doesn’t necessarily follow that it would be a mind.
For an argument defending this point, see The Chinese Room.
For the purpose of this thread, you don’t need to agree with Searle. My point is only that this viewpoint exists, and is held by a significant number of people (and not just philosophers but some neuroscientists too).
So while many people simply see it as a fact that assuming materialism, the brain is a computer, it is not a fact at this time.
We don’t know what the appropriate level is to talk about consciousness. We don’t know exactly what consciousness is yet, and like I said machine =/= computer/program.
It feels like a purely internal thing, and that it doesn’t matter whether a brain is really hooked up to a world or just fed equivalent data, but we don’t know that.
There are computers that are none of these things, of course. You could define a computer in a way that excludes other machines—say, a computer is a machine that takes voltage-patterns to voltage-patterns—but it’s not hard to see that this quickly becomes unwieldy. Ultimately, anything that is isomorphic to a structured process taking some resources to some end-products can be considered a computation; in fact, it’s a point raised by Searle in the very same paper he proposes the Chinese Room (if I remember correctly) that his wall can be understood to implement the WordStar program.
Searle’s Chinese Room works as well as an argument against the possibility that the brain is a machine; after all, the setup he describes essentially is a machine, taking as resources the cards with the Chinese writing on them, and likewise producing cards with such writing on them.
I still don’t see the principled difference. To me, anything that can be simulated by a computer (is Turing reducible), is equivalent to a computer. We don’t know that mind can be thus simulated, but certainly, every machine can. Computation is not a sub-class of the things that machines do, it’s an abstract way to talk about automated processes; any machine can be seen as implementing a certain algorithm that describes its functioning, but that’s all that computation is.
I meant in the formal, computer science sense of the word. By definition a computer must have at least the things I listed.
And there is no sleight of hand here: this discussion would be meaningless if I had been thinking all along of the vague, inconsistent definition of computer used less formally.
Yes but what he means by that is quite different to what you’re saying.
You’re implying any machine can be considered a computer. He is saying any process can be considered a computation, but what is being computed is essentially in the eye of the beholder.
Not really. He’s saying what a computer does is equivalent to a particular kind of machine, and that that machine does not understand Chinese.
He’s not saying that machine is equivalent to a human brain.
Fine, so you have that opinion. Lots of people share you opinion. Lots of people do not.
I am simply arguing against the position that it is a established fact that the brain is a computer. It isn’t.
That’s simply not the case. Lots of special-purpose computers are not Turing complete and aren’t programmable, and state machines are computers that have no memory. What you’re talking about would be true of, for instance, a machine with von Neumann architecture, but that doesn’t nearly exhaust the notion of ‘computer’.
But I’d think that Turing equivalence is the formal definition of computer: anything that can do (some of) the things a Turing machine can do, and for which there is a Turing machine that can do all that it can do, is a computer.
But a machine implements some process, which thus can be seen as a computation. So the machine can be considered a computer. And one of the computations it performs, if we believe Searle in that computation is all in the eye of the beholder, is simply its own functioning.
I don’t believe it is, but neither do I believe that it’s an ‘established fact’ that a brain is necessarily a machine, or that what is machine-like about it gives rise to consciousness.
Searle’s argument can in a sense be seen as a modern-day version of Leibniz’ mill, which was indeed proposed as an argument that machination can’t give rise to consciousness; it can easily be understood in the same way.
I’ve got lots of issues with the Chinese Room thought experiment; one of them is, a Chinese room set-up could be used to simulate the input/output of any computer. The unfortunate person trapped within would be reduced to the task of simulating a single processor. Are we to say then that the computer doesn’t exist in that case, or is different from a normal computer in some way? A human brain/body system is a massively parallel processing system, some of which might use quantum computation (although I’m not convinced that is necessary for consciousness).
If we try to simulate that complexity with a Chinese room, the poor chap inside would be reduced to making millions of responses per second of simulation, and would have to access a database of response instructions that would look nearly as big as Jorge Luis Borges’ Library of Babel from his viewpoint.
The idea of a Chinese Room is absurd, unless you basically make the human in the room into an automaton capable of millions of processes per second; in short, making him into a computer. No-one would expect a single processor in a computer to understand anything; why is Searle surprised if the man in his room does not understand Chinese?
It is possible to replicate the entire brain/body system: they’re called twins. Two things can be identical without one being the other.
I’m intrigued by one of the ideas expressed by Deepak Chopra. He compares the brain to a radio and “YOU” are the transmission received. This view would help explain things like multiple personalities–that would be similar to a radio that is tuned between stations and picking up more that one at a time.
Also, with this idea, it does no good to dissect the brain in an attempt to understand where consciousness originates. It would be like disassembling a radio to discover where the music is coming from. Unless you are familiar with the operating principles of radio transmission and reception, you will never locate the source of the music.
Others have touched on this idea. I find this notion worth considering.
Considered, examined thoroughly, and rejected. Nothing has been found in the human brain that would serve that purpose, and no signals of any frequency have been found to come to or from hour skulls. Like most of Deepak Chopra’s ideas, this one is pretty at best…pretty superficial, that is.
I guess you’re not familiar with the concept of analogy. No one is claiming that actual radio signals are involved.
And how does one look into the feasibility of an analogy? What exactly are we supposed to be looking into?
The analogy provides a different way of approaching a problem. Sometimes, when the answer is elusive, it may be that you aren’t asking the right question. In this case, the common question is “Where in the brain is consciousness located?” Well, maybe it’s not located in the brain at all.
Well, where does [del]Fluffy[/del]Deepak propose it comes from?
You really do miss the point of this, don’t you?
Mystery without solution. I “got” Fluffy Chopra years ago. " He compares the brain to a radio and “YOU” are the transmission received." What exactly is this supposed to be an analogy for?
This isn’t really about Deepak Chopra, or about whether you “got” him. It’s about an idea. You find it not worth your attention. That’s okay.
That doesn’t answer the question brought forth when you said it was an analogy. What is it an analogy for?
Because it’s a silly idea. If the brain is merely a “radio” for consciousness transmitted from another source, then we should be able to find evidence of the “antenna”. We should find structures in the brain whose behavior can not be explained by localized brain chemistry. But as far as we can tell, no such structures exist. At the cellular level, everything in the brain operates as though the physical brain is all there is. This is strong evidence that consciousness is an emergent property of the physical brain and is not produced by a supernatural soul.
Chopra says such things because he is a shallow, foolish man who has very little understanding of how the universe and human beings actually work.
I’m not a Chopra follower, but I also know to consider the idea separate from the source. Maybe if you can show that you have the understanding to construct conscious beings, then maybe I’d give more credence to statements about how things must work and how exhaustive our current understanding of brain physiology is.
Also, I didn’t say anything about a “supernatural soul”. Just because something is physically external doesn’t make it supernatural.
Like I said, it’s an intriguing idea–to me.