No, a computer is just boolean logic. I’m not being reductive, that’s literally all you need.
When people say that thinking is just complicated enough computation, that’s an assumption. A particularly convenient assumption, given all the computers we have lying about.
A brain is several billion living nerve cells all doing their thing, acting and reacting to one another, concurrently. A computer is only ever doing one task at a time, but at a fast enough pace as to give the illusion of multi-tasking.
Emulating a whole brain (everything, not just simplified neural networks, but the actual nerve cells themselves) is currently far beyond what computers are capable of. More then that, not every natural phenomenon can be described algorithmically! It’s entirely possible that consciousness is non-computable.
Yes, it’s an assumption to say consciousness is non-computable. But it’s also an assumption to say it is computable. Not really a phenomenon we understand.
I agree that fleshy brains are probably not the only things capable of producing consciousness. I think it’s actually fairly likely that a machine could be made that reproduces it, I’m just… really skeptical that it’s gonna look anything like a Turing machine. It would certainly be convenient if it did.
As to brains being made of discrete units… there’s some evidence to suggest it might not be. When you put a person (or any living thing) under general anesthetics, the thing the anesthetics target is microtubules within cells. And microtubules themselves have quantum mechanical properties. They’ve been shown to er, “do”, super-luminescence in lab experiments (I don’t understand quantum).
Admittedly, that’s a lot of correlation and almost no direct example of causation. But it does suggest there’s… something… there that needs more examination and research.
well they can do the sums, but that may be a far cry from thinknig
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No, a computer is just boolean logic. I’m not being reductive, that’s literally all you need.
When people say that thinking is just complicated enough computation, that’s an assumption. A particularly convenient assumption, given all the computers we have lying about.
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A brain is several billion living nerve cells all doing their thing, acting and reacting to one another, concurrently. A computer is only ever doing one task at a time, but at a fast enough pace as to give the illusion of multi-tasking.
Emulating a whole brain (everything, not just simplified neural networks, but the actual nerve cells themselves) is currently far beyond what computers are capable of. More then that, not every natural phenomenon can be described algorithmically! It’s entirely possible that consciousness is non-computable.
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Yes, it’s an assumption to say consciousness is non-computable. But it’s also an assumption to say it is computable. Not really a phenomenon we understand.
I agree that fleshy brains are probably not the only things capable of producing consciousness. I think it’s actually fairly likely that a machine could be made that reproduces it, I’m just… really skeptical that it’s gonna look anything like a Turing machine. It would certainly be convenient if it did.
As to brains being made of discrete units… there’s some evidence to suggest it might not be. When you put a person (or any living thing) under general anesthetics, the thing the anesthetics target is microtubules within cells. And microtubules themselves have quantum mechanical properties. They’ve been shown to er, “do”, super-luminescence in lab experiments (I don’t understand quantum).
Admittedly, that’s a lot of correlation and almost no direct example of causation. But it does suggest there’s… something… there that needs more examination and research.
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Here’s the super luminescence research paper https://arxiv.org/abs/2302.01469
although, this PBS youtube video is the summary I actually understand