Turing Machines

[txen]

Originally Posted by The Man in Black

Good post, and I also entirely agree with your last paragraph.



Interesting you should mention that because of the idea of replicating mind as well as the brain. Does the physical brain give rise to the mind, or does the mind operate on a completely different level? Any dualists out there lol? I would consider myself one.

I've been accused of being dualistic beyond reason.

Originally Posted by Clarke

If the universe is computable, and we have every indication that it is, then the mind is just as replicable as the brain.

Being computable in theory doesn't mean computable in practice.

Originally Posted by Human No More

The mind is just software, much like an OS. It can be transferred to other hardware if the profile is the same or it's within its capability to have a degree of abstraction for different ones. For that reason, emulation is also possible - reproduce the basic neural functions and with enough computing resources, you have something equal to or greater than a biological brain.

Again there is that computable in practice thing. Neural networks that we know today are not representations of biological neurons. They are vastly simpler. I doubt there is enough computing power on earth to even simulate a tiny portion of the neurons that make up a human brain. I do know that there have been attempts to simulate the 302 neuron brain of the flatworm. We pretty much know what each of those neurons do and it's a very very tough problem. There is a big gap from there to our more like 1 trillion neuron brain were we have little clue as to function of each part.

It's easy to draw the line between hardware and software for our computers. It's not so simple with your brain. I would venture that they can not be separated. Even more the brain you have now is a lot different than what you were born with. It's constantly changing.

[Clarke]

Originally Posted by txen

It's easy to draw the line between hardware and software for our computers. It's not so simple with your brain. I would venture that they can not be separated. Even more the brain you have now is a lot different than what you were born with. It's constantly changing.

We've got software-controlled hardware already. We also know that the mind can be computed in a fairly small amount of space; the brain already does it. (And the brain was semi-randomly evolved, which means that we should be able to make it far smaller.)

[Human No More]

Originally Posted by txen

Again there is that computable in practice thing. Neural networks that we know today are not representations of biological neurons. They are vastly simpler. I doubt there is enough computing power on earth to even simulate a tiny portion of the neurons that make up a human brain. I do know that there have been attempts to simulate the 302 neuron brain of the flatworm. We pretty much know what each of those neurons do and it's a very very tough problem. There is a big gap from there to our more like 1 trillion neuron brain were we have little clue as to function of each part.

It's easy to draw the line between hardware and software for our computers. It's not so simple with your brain. I would venture that they can not be separated. Even more the brain you have now is a lot different than what you were born with. It's constantly changing.

Very true, but that's implementable. There are almost certainly no people who could describe the function of all hardware down to the level of what that individual capacitor does and where that trace goes, yet they can for discrete components, and it's through their interfacing in a standard manner that something can be built across the top.