From: nelson_p@apollo.hp.com (Peter Nelson)
Subject: Re: Economic Discrimination was Outgrowing Libertarianism...
Date: Mon, 5 Oct 1992 20:01:34 GMT
Distribution: usa
Organization: Hewlett-Packard Corporation, Chelmsford, MA

In article <183761@pyramid.pyramid.com> pcollac@pyrnova.mis.pyramid.com (Paul Collacchi) writes:
>In article <BvnHpt.6Ax@apollo.hp.com>, nelson_p@apollo.hp.com (Peter
>Nelson) writes:
>|> 
>|>
>|> >What science says this?  What science is not based on the premise of the
>|> >free will of the scientist to choose what evidence to look at, what
>|> >experiments to perform, and how to interpret the results?
>|> 
>|>   Science makes no assumptions about the motivations of the scientist.
>|>   The nice thing about science is that it doesn't depend on subjective
>|>   experience.  A highly intelligent automaton could do everything a  
>|>   human scientist does and reach the same conclusions.
>|> 
>Oops.  I don't think this is right.  I doubt that the "doing of Science"
>is itself a system whose results could be ground out by some kind of
>Turing machine.  Science is very subjective and highly intuitive. 
>Remember, Peter, it was Einstein who said, "I did not arrive at a
>fundamental understanding of the universe through the use of my rational mind."

  But I would rejoin that all this means is that he is not consciously
  aware of all the workings of his brain, just like the rest of us.
  If you look at the  famous  <--->   >---<  illusion or the full-moon
  -at-the-horizon one, or any of countless others, your conscious
  perception will tell you one thing and logic will tell you something
  else.    It often takes subtle experiments to determine why the non-
  rational part of your brain reaches the conclusions it does.  But 
  that doesn't mean such "why's" can never be answered.   And as science
  progresses it's only a matter of time before we understand the whole
  thing.  

  BTW, don't forget that computers have solved proofs that the best
  human mathematicians were unable to solve.

  What are you going to do when we can create a whole brain from
  scratch by putting together amino acids and other building blocks?
  I read in the paper today that two entire human chromosomes are
  now completely mapped.  Some estimates now say that the entire
  human genome will be mapped in less than 10 years.  

  How long will it be before we can create neural nets or brain
  simulations or other complex systems that have as much intelligence
  and complexity as we do?  A few generations, maybe?  Will they have
  free will?  (ob. t.p.t:  will they have rights?)


>Certain aspects, observing, recording observations are rote, but
>theorizing, determining what experiments to run, creating models to
>test, etc.  nothing automata-like about that at all.

  This is a religious proposition.  If we can simulate the behavior
  of a single neuron then why should simulating an antire brain be 
  more than a big engineering problem?  

  Personally I think the proposition that there is something "special"
  about the human mind/brain to be the last refuge of those who cannot
  face what we have wrought with science and technology.  Don't forget:
  there was a time when people believed life couldn't be created from
  scratch or evolved without the hand of God.  


>Also, you seem to be missing the more profound aspects of Quantum Mechanics.
>QM is very specific that we are ONLY dealing with "subjective"
>experience, and not with the "thing-in-itself".  A "particle" is an
>equation whose output accurately predicts certain observed phenomena. 

  Right, but it doesn't specify what has to do the observing.   There's
  nothing about QM that requires the observer to be, say, white, male,
  adult or even human.


---peter








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