🚀 go-pugleaf

In <CyCM9C.960@cogsci.ed.ac.uk> jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton) writes:

>In article <37l2d0$hpr@mp.cs.niu.edu> rickert@cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert) writes:
>>
>>Personally, I tend to doubt any argument which tries to make anything
>>important out of a difference between digital and analog.  It is
>>worth remembering that movie theaters have long been delivering
>>discrete shows, with the picture image switching 24 times per second,
>>and except for the occasional backward turning wagon wheels, it all
>>looks continuous to us.  This should caution us that arguments about
>>the importance of analog components are bogus.

>Can be bogus.

>But I find this discussion puzzling.  If some quantum effects
>are required (which is what Penrose seems to think), then presumably
>they must actually take place and not just be simulated by some
>numbers that go through the right motions.

That some quantum effects are required is not being questioned.
Transistors also require quantum effects for their operation.  The
important question is whether consciousness can be explained with
classical physics.  A dependence on classical physics does not deny a
role of quantum phenomena, since those phemomena are involved in
classical physics.  The Penrose claim is that consciousness requires
some special quantum properties, beyond those captured by classical
physics.

>Now that in itself is no threat to *artificial* intelligence,
>so why are people so determined to crush the idea?

Who is crushing whose ideas?  If you think I am trying to crush
Penrose's ideas, the Penrose is equally trying to crush the ideas of
most people in AI, and of many neurobiologists, psychologists, etc.
Are we to be criticized for attempting to crush Penrose's ideas, but
Penrose gets a free pass in his attempts to crush ideas?  This is
ridiculuous.

We are not trying to crush ideas.  We are simply pointing out that
Penrose has provided no basis for his ideas, and to the best of our
judgement he is wrong.  Let the marketplace of free ideas decide the
issue.  No crushing is required.