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From: D.M. Procida on 30 Apr 2010 05:52 Richard Tobin <richard(a)cogsci.ed.ac.uk> wrote: > >That's John Searle. I don't know what Robert Searle thinks. > > I don't even know who Robert Searle is! Sorry, I managed to spoil the joke. Ronald, not Robert. Daniele
From: Graeme on 30 Apr 2010 06:16 In message <1jhrcta.1zwtjzf2i8a4N%real-not-anti-spam-address(a)apple-juice.co.uk> real-not-anti-spam-address(a)apple-juice.co.uk (D.M. Procida) wrote: > Richard Tobin <richard(a)cogsci.ed.ac.uk> wrote: > > > >That's John Searle. I don't know what Robert Searle thinks. > > > > I don't even know who Robert Searle is! > > Sorry, I managed to spoil the joke. Ronald, not Robert. > Let's draw this to a close! -- Graeme Wall My genealogy website <www.greywall.demon.co.uk/genealogy/>
From: Rowland McDonnell on 1 May 2010 09:16 Peter Ceresole <peter(a)cara.demon.co.uk> wrote: > Rowland McDonnell <real-address-in-sig(a)flur.bltigibbet.invalid> wrote: > > > Seems to me that for whatever reason, James is a very angry chap most of > > the time. I can feel his irritation feeding his anger. > > Are you surprised? What makes you think it's appropriate to ask personally intrusive questions like that, Peter? What made you think to ask that particular question? It seems very odd to pry into my personal private emotions on this technical newsgroup - why do it? > A clever man who's life is made much more complicated by blindness? <puzzled> What? Any blind person's life is made harder than it would be if they could see. I do not see what makes you think that James has an excuse to rant and rave angrily just because he's blind - most blind people are in exactly the same position as him, if not worse, and mostly they're not that aggressive. Nor do I see that James is particularly clever - not that I'm calling him stupid, just `not endowed with the sort of super-brain you seem to be implying'. > Personally, I've always found him to be very gentlemanly and restrained, Personally, I know that you've found him to be rude and insulting and very very aggressive about it, because I've seen his posts here that you must have read. So I know that I have in fact caught you out lying this once, Peter. > but I can see where there might be great irritation and tension. Mmm - yers, so can I. Nothing to do with James, rather a lot to do with your behaviour... Rowland. -- Remove the animal for email address: rowland.mcdonnell(a)dog.physics.org Sorry - the spam got to me http://www.mag-uk.org http://www.bmf.co.uk UK biker? Join MAG and the BMF and stop the Eurocrats banning biking
From: Rowland McDonnell on 1 May 2010 10:41 Richard Tobin <richard(a)cogsci.ed.ac.uk> wrote: > D.M. Procida <real-not-anti-spam-address(a)apple-juice.co.uk> wrote: > > >Searle thinks that there *is* something special about biological > >processes that is key to consciousness. > > And Penrose thinks that consciousness depends on non-deterministric > quantum effects in "microtubules". Penrose is betting that this *MIGHT* be the case. He's not that certain about anything much. He might be willing to bet the farm on it - but he's not absolutely certain about anything. No-one who's a top-flight physicist can be, except in the sense of `I'm really absolutely sure that I want a coffee and some cake right now'. [snip] Rowland. -- Remove the animal for email address: rowland.mcdonnell(a)dog.physics.org Sorry - the spam got to me http://www.mag-uk.org http://www.bmf.co.uk UK biker? Join MAG and the BMF and stop the Eurocrats banning biking
From: Rowland McDonnell on 1 May 2010 10:41
Richard Tobin <richard(a)cogsci.ed.ac.uk> wrote: > Bruce Horrocks <07.013(a)scorecrow.com> wrote: > > >A friend, back in his student days, attended a lecture during which > >Penrose stated that he couldn't ever imagine a silicon-based computer > >truly thinking. To which his waggish response was "So I suppose you > >can't imagine a carbon-based computer thinking either?" > > Amusing, but rather begging the question - if silicon computers can't > think, it might be because the brain is *not* a carbon-based computer. It bloody well is. Open up your brain-pan and poke it around. Look at the parts. It's a computer, but one that's a lot more sophisticated in architecture than anything built by hand of man, and with a lot of noise and random inputs, and with processing elements (neurons) that are not even slightly properly understood - each one is more like a computer, not a mere gate. Apparently, so I read in the latest New Scientist (or was it the previous one?) The damned things use quantum processes for calculation, at least as far as I've been able to figure out from what I've been reading of recent research. They're not quite sure what they're on to quite yet. > That is, when Penrose said "silicon-based computer" he presumably was > not intending to refer to the properties of silicon (as opposed to > carbon), but the way we used it to build computers consisting of > deterministic logical components. Never heard of a random number generator? Noise? Processing done using random and other non-deterministic components/inputs? Complex behaviours? Chaotic behaviours? Etc? Computers-as-built are not fully deterministic - if only because one cannot readily predict complex or chaotic behaviour in general - not even the high-reliability ones (but they just crash or reboot automatically or similar when something goes wrong). Rowland. -- Remove the animal for email address: rowland.mcdonnell(a)dog.physics.org Sorry - the spam got to me http://www.mag-uk.org http://www.bmf.co.uk UK biker? Join MAG and the BMF and stop the Eurocrats banning biking |