IUBio

machine brains

Stephen Mann quarklet at well.com
Fri Jan 22 20:10:46 EST 1999


Ray Scanlon (rscanlon at wsg.net) wrote:

: We should leave soul (mind, self, intelligence, whatever) to the theologians
: and proceed with the design of a machine that can think and decide using
: only neuromimes. As a first step we examine the brain to see how the neurons
: do these things. If we can explain the how the brain thinks, how it decides,
: we shall know how to design the machine.

: Ray

Ray,

This is about where you should have started your post. I don't know which 
philosophers you mean, but I don't think of my soul as a ghost but rather 
as a psychic faculty, like my mind and other faculties. Soul is about 
your quality rather. Would you prefer to have a girlfriend with no 
emotions and whom was as cold as ice? Well, guess what? That's how she 
doesn't want you either! A person without a soul is like a prism 
through which light passes without breaking into its inherent colors. A 
winter's day is souless compared to vibrant spring's. if you were a 
machine, you wouldn't notice the difference. Do you like souless music? 
Maybe you would prefer to snap your fingers to some elevator musak. How 
about some souless food? Just slop something tasteless on a bread slice 
and ram it into your mouth. Bottoms up!

Even if you did build yourself a brain, what would you do with it? Put it 
in a robot and teach it to be like you? If this brain was any good, it 
would look at us and jump into the nearest junk yard.

Steve





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