RE: Mind is the brain?
April 4, 2016 at 4:45 pm
(This post was last modified: April 4, 2016 at 5:26 pm by The Grand Nudger.)
(April 4, 2016 at 8:14 am)bennyboy Wrote: Look, you are deliberately avoiding answering the salient point: what, exactly is needed for your comp mind? What part of the computer, what part of the brain? What part of those systems is minimally sufficient in establishing the functions you claim are comp mind? I'm not saying a computer is "just stuff." I'm saying that much of the thing sitting under my desk is "just stuff" and is not intrinsic to the processes you are claiming for comp mind. This means that my computer is NOT, in its entirety, a computer in the sense that you mean it-- any more than my room would be a computer just because computing happens to be going on inside it.I did no such thing, I've answered your question already. You were given the definition of a computer some pages back. It's a fairly full definition - as another poster pointed out, I described a turing complete system. There are simpler computers, but none I would consider a candidate for mind, and so, irrelevant. If it fits that definition, it's a comp system., and I'd call it a candidate for mind. Much of the stuff sitting under your desk is dust and flooring. I assumed I wouldn't have to explain that dust and flooring aren't part of your pc, or a part of your comp system any more than the melon you -refuse- to post with is. I fail to see the relevance in any case, unless you also think that your dust and flooring are part of your mind you're simply sending us down the rabbit hole -yet again.
Quote:Let me ask you this: the power for my computer comes from a coal-burning facility elsewhere in Korea. Is this part of the computer? How about the power lines? How about the fuel which provides the energy? Are the criteria for comp mind really just a nice-looking box that we can call a "thing?" How about the internet connection? What about satellite connections, in which there's no direct physical connection at all? How about the sun, which ultimately provides all the energy used to operate my computer? Is the sun a part of my computer?You could choose to conceptualize them as being part of your pc, it would be silly, but it would certainly open up plenty of things to prevaricate upon...as is clearly your intention. One could ask the same question of mind, without reference to any theory of mind. Is -your- mind also what you see, or those things which cause you to feel? Is it the sun in the sky and the tomatoes in the field? Obviously we won't get anywhere with this line of questioning (you wouldn't allow it yourself - you don't think that your mind is "all of the stuff" regardless of any theory of mind), and it drops the iq of the participatants in the process.
Until you can accept that "computer" and "computation" refers to something specific, and that your pc doesn't run on magic, you aren't discussing or objecting to computers, computation, or CTM. If your only means of argumentation is to repeat "it's just a bunch of stuff" then you're out of gas...and this discussion, I think, ends with a "no shit". This statement was insufficient as a description of a comp system....or, frankly, anything at all...the very -first- time you made it and it hasn't become sufficient through repetition since.
Good luck in your deathmatch against reason, identity, and specificity of terms.
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