tonmaas at xs4all.nl (Ton Maas) writes:
}
} "Mdg" <Mdg at nospam.com> wrote:
} >Leads me to a question I always wondered about, say we hit the point where
} >we can actually map a human brain to a fine enough detail that we can
} >simulate it's behavior on a computer. Will the simulation be conscious?
}
} According to neurophysiologists Varela & Maturana consciousness is
} restricted to autopoietic systems - which by definition produce their own
} organization by an evolutionary process not unlike "tinkering". Seems like
} the conscious computer will have to invent itself from scrap in order to
} ever attain consciousness :-)
patrick at gryphon.psych.ox.ac.uk (Patrick Juola) writes:
>>Unfortunately, this definition is immediately and trivially incorrect.
>Individual humans do not evolve; evolution is a process restricted to
>populations. An individual human (which I assume is conscious) is
>largely a copy of prior humans -- and so a sufficiently detailed copy
>of a human organism should also be conscious, by a similar process.
Largely, but part of that "copy" is a brain that is a work in progress
whose structure is not wholly dictated by genetics. Although not
evolution in the strict sense of evolutionary biology, the brain
does change and adapt. A 'sufficiently detailed copy' would have to
include those rules that allow the 'tinkering' the previous posted
noted was important.
--
James A. Carr <jac at scri.fsu.edu> | Commercial e-mail is _NOT_
http://www.scri.fsu.edu/~jac/ | desired to this or any address
Supercomputer Computations Res. Inst. | that resolves to my account
Florida State, Tallahassee FL 32306 | for any reason at any time.