X-Message-Number: 8560
Date: Sun, 7 Sep 1997 22:00:34 -0700 (PDT)
From: John K Clark <>
Subject: Uploading

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In #8549  Thomas Donaldson <> On Sat, 6 Sep 1997 Wrote:
		   
	>Anyone with even a little mathematics will know that "equivalence" 
	>can be defined in many different ways, as you wish. 
		  

Correct me if I'm wrong but I think Alan Turing knew a little mathematics.
		   

	>Turing Machines are certainly equivalent to parallel machines if 
	>equivalence means that their results are the same. If equivalence 
	>means that their results are the same AND are attained in times 
	>within an order of magnitude of one another, they are not equivalent.
		

Aren't you the same man who proposed a model for an analog computer that, 
unlike a Turing Machine, was physically impossible, and then defended it by 
saying:  

 "Remember that we are considering an abstract machine. Such a machine could   
  be taken as a model for an analog computer. [...] Anyone who criticises 

  these abstract models on the ground that they are not possible misses their
    point completely."

I have other problems, first you say " we really do process things 
differently than present computers." but you don't say how you know this or 
how you figured out that the "difference" was qualitative and not just  
quantitative, then you contradict yourself by saying " experiments on brains  
are needed because even the most imaginative among us may have failed to  
imagine just how we work." 
      
I also don't think it's fair to slam Minsky for being a computer scientist 
and not a biologist, in his book he wrote about things he had some expertise 
in and that sounds like a wise move to me. Actually Minsky is a very 
versatile man and ironically invented one of the most important tools in 
neurological research, the Confocal Microscope.   
			  
On Sat, 06 Sep 1997  <> Wrote:
			   
	>To my mind, however, the ability to mimic a human pattern of 
	>responses to queries across a network connection is not sufficient 
	>to encompass the intelligence of a human.  
			   

We're answering each other's questions over a network right now, do you think 
I or anybody on Cryonet is a human and if so why?
						     
					    John K Clark      


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