daleh (01/27/83)
Another central issue concerns the nature of conciousness and the relationship between information, knowledge and independent thought. To comment on CB's "classical chain", there is an apparent movement (possibly a minor movement) afoot, which asserts that the univers is holographic in nature, i.e., matter and conciousness are manifestations of a deeper, underlying universe or existence - the hologram comes into play because matter and conciousness may be interpretted as "intereference patterns" of the deeper universe. Without getting into the an issue over the truth of such an assertion, I mention it because, it has implications on the *nature* of conciousness. If conciousness is a direct result of physical interactions (deterministic conciousness), then the creation of a silicon brain could exhibit creative, independent thought. However, if conciousness is parrallel to the foundations of physics ("quantum" conciousness), then a silicon brain may only be a reasonable facsimile of intelligence (a major accomplishment in itself), incapable of creative, independent thought. I don't believe that intelligence is deterministic - just as it isn't possible to predict the exact location of an electron in quantum mechanics, I believe that it is isn't possible to predict the action of a concious entity - and without rules to translate from sensory input to sensory output it is difficult to *create* creativity. Getting back to a more realistic vein, structured information does not imply intelligence. While the "low-level" study of the brain may lead to translation rules, it is more realistic to study the set of rules necessary to translate info into intelligent action and then design an information structure, than it is to deduce the appropriate rules from the structure of the brain. Dale Henrichs tektronix!daleh [that holographic stuff came from a book "The Holographic Paradigm and Other Paradoxes", Shambhala, 1982 - interesting food for thought if you are into science and lean toward Eastern philosophy. Articles by a physicist and a neuro-scientist among others.]