modlin at concentric.net writes:
>In <353EFFF7.857AE508 at linkserve.com.ng>, Lyle Bateman <lbateman at linkserve.com.ng> writes:
>>Its a matter of a lot more than just programming, I'd have to say. Hardware
>>design is critical here. With the type of architecture currently popular in
>>the computer industry, conciousness will never happen.
I have to agree with Lyle here.
>In the sense that you seem to mean it, your statement that hardware
>design is critical is wrong.
And thus I disagree with Bill.
>Hardware design is important in a lot of practical ways. A design must
>provide devices and channels for information to come into the system and
>out of it... sensors and effectors, in biological or robotic terms.
>Hardware design also determines how fast computations can proceed, and
>how much information can be stored and manipulated... all very important
>to the practicality of solving any particular computational problem.
>But hardware design has absolutely nothing to do with the kinds of
>things that can be computed,
To the extent that that is true, computation is irrelevant to
cognition. You could do all of the same computation on a Turing
machine with no devices and channels at all. And since there are no
channels, the Turing machine would have no world to cognize.
