We are no different than computers

[emjay]

Tell you what, going back to references and ways to find out more about CTM, best way...imo, is to model solutions to "mind" in an HDL.  Nothing overarching or groundbreaking, just little pieces here and there, modules you might say.  So, you might ask yourself how to manufacture a comp sys that could "experience red" - or return some effect descriptively identical to whatever you might mean by "experiencing red".   I would, by no means, say that modeling mind is easy, if it were, I wouldn't be pasting that model on -these- boards, eh? What you might find by doing, however...that you may not necessarily find by reading, is how simple -some- implementations are for things that produce effects we normally ascribe to mind.    Of course, it also allows you to recognize when a living creature -without- mind..presumably, is using some form of comp-for-effect.  My favorite is kin selection, because almost invariably we conceptualize kin selection as a product of some manner of mind, limited, perhaps..in dogs, for example, and sophisticated in ourselves.  Yet, we can watch sea thistle achieve the effect through comp, and demonstrably so.  That last bit is important (imo), because even if we, ourselves, were not producing these effects by means of comp mind......it shows us that they -can be-, and that we don't have to wonder about that..specifically - that it's not just computers ala microsoft that can compute, but also biological implementations which -do- exist.  \Here, at least, we can see that certain structures of our own bodies "do comp" even if our minds arent comp...but at least it might whittle away all the effects not necessarrily related to mind, all the noise, if mind were some "else".  It would say "okay, mind is "else" - but these things -long list- are comp.  I think the things I would put in that box are the things that you've described as illusions, regardless of whether there is another box, or a better explanation for mind.

In short, I think that ctm would explain much - even in failing to explain mind, and might even help further that better explanation -of mind- as it failed.....so, worth exploring, eh?  

-I just like to keep these things going.   

Okay I'm willing to try your experiment but what's an HDL? Sorry - I'm usually about five years behind everyone technology-wise. But for what it's worth I'm already sold on the notion that a computer can be made of any material - that, as this this thread asks, the brain is indeed a biological computer.

I haven't looked at computation in simplistic terms, as your experiment may or may not be suggesting to do - I'll find out when I do it, but I have looked a lot in neural network terms. One of my favourite books, and one that completely changed my whole view of the mind is called "Computational Explorations in Cognitive Neuroscience". It's aim is to create artificial neural networks that model biological neural networks, right down to modelling the flow of ions into and out of the cells. In it it demonstrates how many features of mind can be implemented with these neural networks. So I don't know whether this counts, but I am already convinced in the capacity of neural networks to perform many of the things we take for granted about the mind.

But as for modelling things like seeing red (a great book by the way, by Nicholas Humphrey) that could be a lot harder and I wouldn't know where to start?

Edited to add: Starting to read that link you posted, my modelling of brain features with neural networks, is not what you're talking about. I have to say that article looks a bit technical and over my head - what I really need is a CTM for Dummies book   - but what it seems to be suggesting, and correct me if I'm wrong, is to essentially create an equation or algorithm with various mental states or whatever acting as the symbols in that equation. Is that what you are suggesting I do with the seeing red experiment?