From: Case (Case@iSpots.com)
Date: Sun Nov 27 2005 - 16:05:37 GMT
[Case said]
I am confused about where this is heading then. I would say that the logic
gate is designed to interpret input and change state to produce a particular
output. The water in pipes example doesn't really flow since it is the water
molecules that are flowing, nothing about the pipes routes them in any
particular directions as a gate does electrons.
Scott:
You can build a logic gate out of pipes and water (and valves). Once it is
built, the direction of the water's flow is determined strictly by gravity
and whether the valves are open or shut, and the opening and shutting of the
valves is in turn determined by gravity and whether other valves are open or
shut. Logic gates built out of transistors and wire are the same. There is
no choice and no options. It is a perfectly Newtonian machine, which
requires no interpretation for anything to happen. We can look at it and
interpret what it does, but that's all.
[Case]
Gates of a sort can be constructed to guide the direction of anything that
flows. Traffic signs function as logic gates to determine the flow of
traffic. If you build logic gates into the flow of water they will direct
it. But once they are introduced into the system the flow is no longer
random it is determined by how the gates interpret their input. I still say
the flow constanty presents choices to the gate states are the result of
interpretation of the raw data.
You seem not to want to call this interpretation. Ok, so what would
interpretation be then?
--------------------------------------
Case said:
Fortunately cars don't rear up when startled but some of them can tell you
if you leave your keys inside. Some will even tell you if you are standing
too close to them or when you are low on gas. Maybe this isn't "just like
people do" but it is designed to mimic what people do and the design process
may be telling us a bit about how we go about doing what we do.
Scott:
I would deny that it is telling us anything of interest about what people
do.. Human language use requires consciousness, which requires the ability
to transcend space and time, and machines built out of logic gates are
expressly designed to be Newtonian and cannot transcend space and time.
(Quantum gates may be a different story, but I haven't thought it through as
yet). (Note also, that I do not think that the phrase "consciousness
transcends space and time" is accurate, since it implies that there is space
and time, and then consciousness comes along to transcend it, which would be
dualist. Instead, I hold that consciousness creates space and time, as it
does in dreams.)
[Case]
We keep coming back to this mysterious term Consciousness. To the extent
that you are calling it an undefined source of all things I might be able to
buy it. But usually the term comes with lots of other baggage. Does your
version of consciousness have a goal? Is it just like us only bigger? How
does it differ from just plain old chance?
---------------------------------------
Scott:
Insofar as one is mimicking the action of neurons with logic gates one is
showing that the spatio-temporal actions of neurons do not add up to
consciousness. This is because with a system of logic gates, because each
one is separated in time and/or space from all others, there can be no
awareness of anything larger than the state of an input wire, i.e., low or
high voltage. (And there can't even be awareness of that, since somehow the
gate must be aware of the possibility that, if low it could have been high,
and vice versa.) The same applies, of course, to the spatio-temporal
activity of neurons, so the spatio-temporal activity of neurons can regulate
consciousness, but can't produce it.
[Case]
So why can't the logic gates be said to regulate the flow of consciousness
as well? Consciousness manifested by the flow of electrons. But again I
really could use a little help with what Consciousness is.
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