IUBio

Toward a Science of Consciousness 1998

Brian J Flanagan bflanagn at sleepy.giant.net
Fri Apr 24 06:42:27 EST 1998



On 23 Apr 1998 modlin at concentric.net wrote:

> In <6hodma$o2j at ux.cs.niu.edu>, rickert at cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert) writes:
> >To the extent that that is true, computation is irrelevant to
> >cognition.  

BJ: And you have determined this ... how? 


> 
> The original statement was that our modern computers could not be 
> conscious because they are just big number-crunchers, followed by 
> suggestions that a different (non-number crunching) computer 
> architecture might still be able to be conscious.  That's false.  If any
> computer archictecture can do the job, all of them can, in principle.


BJ: What principle are you invoking?


> And if a number-crunching computer can't do the job, then NO computer, 
> regardless of architecture can do the job.  Period.  


BJ: Wonderful finality, that--but perhaps it is only a question of what 
one means by 'computer'. 



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