Chronology Current Month Current Thread Current Date
[Year List] [Month List (current year)] [Date Index] [Thread Index] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Date Prev] [Date Next]

Re: Physics is a human construct



Hi Charlie,

I am curious about your Mind & Machine course and the
text by J Searle. I did a search at Amazon.com and found about 1/2 doz
such books by Searle. Can you tell me the exact title of your text?
Who takes this course? What background do you require?

-Bob

Bob Sciamanda
Physics, Edinboro Univ of PA (ret)
trebor@velocity.net
http://www.velocity.net/~trebor

-----Original Message-----
From: Charles Crummer <ccrummer@cats.ucsc.edu>
To: phys-l@atlantis.uwf.edu <phys-l@atlantis.uwf.edu>
Date: Tuesday, May 26, 1998 12:49 PM
Subject: Re: Physics is a human construct


Bob Sciamanda wrote:

Seriously, I believe that consciousness is a unique phenomenon,
presenting a unique modeling problem for science. I have no problem
believing that everything else that I observe in natural phenomena
(including the behavior of animals and humans) is in principle
describable, modelable and even explainable as the behavior of
automata -
reducible to molecular interactions. The one exception is my own
directly experienced consciousness. I cannot even describe this
phenomenon in terms of anything else; I have no means of conclusively
measuring or proving its existence in another entity; and I can imagine
no way in which any theoretical or experimental manipulation of atoms
can
arrive at the observation: "Eureka! There we have produced
consciousness!" Perhaps the very description of itself demarcates the
limitations of the human mind.

Every time I teach a course called "Mind and Machine" I wrestle with
these
issues. The text for this course is a little book by John Searle, I
believe, "Mind and Machine." Searle's thesis is that what we call
consciousness comprises more functionality than can be achieved, in
principle, by a digital automaton or any other digital program. He sees
consciousness as the result of the chemical and whatever other physical
activities may be taking place in the brain; no soul. Searle, like
Laplace, has no need for God or the soul.

Goedel, Turing, and Church somewhat independently arrived at
demonstrations
of undecidablilty. Goedel produced a statement which is formally
undecidable but true. How did he come up with such a statememt? Turing
showed that there are computer programs which will never halt but cannot
be
formally, i.e. by a prescribable finite sequence of rules, diagnosed as
such. How? He produced one. These men produced notions which, by
demonstration, no machine could.

If consciousness is just chemistry and maybe quantum mechanics, it can
be
prescribed by a finite set of rules. Can't it?

Charlie