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I assume you are referring to Searle's "Chinese Room" [1] thought experiment [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_room https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chine
by pacaro 10y ago
I assume you are referring to Searle's "Chinese Room" [1] thought experiment
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_room https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_room
- EGreg 10y agoNo, China Brain. It is more analogous here. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_brain https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_brain
- dTal 10y agoIt's interesting that both "thought experiments" take essentially the same form - layer a fully working consciousness (defined either by being able to pass the Turing test or by actually emulating a brain on the physical level) onto a bizarre and improbable substrate that, strictly speaking, is too small to contain it; then gawp at the improbability of the arrangement you've constructed. Dennett has a good rebuttal to this whole class - he notes that is not at all intuitive that a brain should be conscious. Open up someone's skull and look at the pulsing meat, and try and convince yourself that there's a mental universe in there. You may as well say "it's just stupid atoms bumping around - how could that be conscious?" You either believe in a) supernatural souls, b) the mystical consciousness-granting power of meat, or c) minds are independent of their substrate.
- EGreg 10y agoI think a and c could be the same. Why not believe it?
- dTal 10y agoYeah I thought that as I was typing it, but I was procrastinating and didn't have time to fully flesh it out so I hit submit anyway!
- Florin_Andrei 10y agoIn 1899 the equations of relativity or quantum mechanics may have sounded quite "mystical" too. Lots of things sound incomprehensible, or fairy-tale-like, until you actually understand their intricacies.