4 ms·
There are plenty of smart people elsewhere who believe the human mind is un-simulatable. For example, Roger Penrose argues that thought processes are determinis
by one-more-minute 12y ago
There are plenty of smart people elsewhere who believe the human mind is un-simulatable. For example, Roger Penrose argues that thought processes are deterministic but non-algorithmic.
I've never really understood that perspective, though. Surely, in the absolute worst case, we could just make an atom-for-atom copy of a human brain? Even if you take seriously the idea that there's some kind of magic consciousness juice that exists outside the universe, evolution has managed to hook into it and surely so can we.
- Padding 12y agoExcept that atoms are not homogenous entities. Even assuming you'd somehow manage to produce and combine atoms to a spec, there's positively no way of obtaining that spec.
- one-more-minute 12y agoEven if thinking does somehow depend on quantum effects, it seems hugely unlikely that it would depend on the specific quantum state of individual atoms. If it does, you don't need a spec of that state, since we know that it can emerge from something simpler (humans start out as a single cell, after all, and so in fact did all of humanity). You don't need the whole system, just the right initial conditions. At that point you're growing a brain rather than engineering one, and maybe it takes you no closer to understanding the mechanics. But the point stands that it must be possible to construct a brain in principle, because it's already happened so many times before.