(February 28, 2016 at 4:56 pm)Jehanne Wrote:(February 28, 2016 at 2:49 pm)BrianSoddingBoru4 Wrote: I agree that free will is illusory (just because actions feel free doesn't mean they are), but wherever did you get the notion that the human brain is irreducibly complex?
Boru
The brain is irreducibly complex in that it is much more than 0s & 1s; after all, has anyone simulated a human or mammalian brain? The answer, of course, is, "Yes," but such have all been very poor to poor simulations. So far, consciousness exists only in brains and not in computers, and in my opinion, computers will never have consciousness. For one, most of the human brain is fat, or myelin, which acts as an insulator but also as a messenger, but, I am not expert. So, whatever makes up consciousness is likely to be found in wetware and not inorganic materials, which make-up computers.
But that's nothing to do with irreducible complexity. The term means that, if you have a system with multiple parts, removing any of those parts renders the whole system inoperable. In other words, you cannot reduce the complexity of the system without destroying it. Lots of people have lost bits of their brain (including your Humble Narrator) and are able to function as if nothing were missing. In some cases, brains have been observed to reroute functions to other parts of the brain to compensate for the missing bits.
Boru
‘But it does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are twenty gods or no gods. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.’ - Thomas Jefferson
