Re: Lewontin reviews Steven Rose's latest book on the bra

[Carrol Cox <cbcox@xxxxxxxxx>]

Charles Brown wrote:
>
> i do not see it as the equivalent of matrix, where a virtual reality is
> created and maintained. but if you are a materialist, a human is no
> different from a computer. we may have been programmed by nature while computers may
> need programming by us. nonetheless, if a finite mass (the human population)
> can exhibit certain traits, why not some other finite mass?
>
>         --ravi
>
> ^^^^^
> CB: As I said, I can't think of an abstract principle excluding the
> possibility you pose.

Charles, you haven't read Les Shaffer's post to the marxism list on this
topic.


-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: [Marxism] Re: [PEN-L] More Godel
Date: Sat, 19 Mar 2005 12:41:57 -0500
From: Les Schaffer <schaffer@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>

Carrol Cox wrote:

>For critiques of Hofstadter's "computationalism," see
>
><http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~philos/MindDict/searle.html>
>
>and the other links given there. It is a discussion of the work of John
>Searle.
>
I am reading "The Philosophy of Artificial Intelligence", edited by
Margaret Boden (Oxord U Press). It has Turing's orginal ideas in
non-technical form (Computing Machinery and Intelligence, A Turning,
1950) as well as Searle's rebuttal to strong AI (Minds, Brains, and
Programs). here's a snippet from the latter, reminds me _of our friend
D'Amasio:

"""
'Could a machine think?' My own view is that *only* a machine could
think, and indeed only very special kinds of machines, namely brains and
machines that had the same causal powers as brains. And that is the main
reason strong AI has had little to tell us about thinking, since it has
nothing to tell us about machines. By its own definition, it is about
programs, and programs are not machines. Whatever else intentionality
is, it is a biological phenomenon, and it is as likely to be as causally
dependent on the specific biochemistry of its origins as lactation,
photosynthesis, or any other biological phenomena. No one would suppose
that we could produce milk and sugar by running a computer simulation of
the formal sequences in lactation and photosynthesis, but where the mind
is concerned many people are willing to believe in such a miracle
because of a deep and abiding dualism: the mind they suppose is a matter
of formal processes and is independent of quite specific material causes
in the way that milk and sugar are not.
"""

the compilation by Boden is good for people interested in the
philosphical background of AI, and also has some interesting history.
for example "Making a mind versus modelling the brain: artifical
intelligince back at a branch point", by Hubert and Stewart Dreyfus
traces a splitting in the research community starting in the 50's
between more formal based schemes and schemes based loosely on biology
(perceptrons). The article details how Minksy and colleagues at MIT
effectively shut/shot down the biology-based stuff for a long time. i
know several CS people who claim this held the field back for a long
time.

les schaffer
=======================================

The belief in the possibility of a "thinking computer" is a dualist --
i.e., an idealist -- conception for it assumes  that "thinking" is
independent of the biological organism in which it occurs.

I found Hogstadter's _GEB_ a marvellous book, and I still occasionally
browse in it. But strong AI is _not_ a materialist notion.

Carrol