In article <2eptdk$cni at nucleus.harvard.edu> Dan Crevier <crevier at husc.harvard.edu> writes:
>Subject: Re: Is uploading feasible?
> Who says that neural activity can "choose," and what is choosing?
I do and I agree with you: what is choosing?
>Looking at the brain as a machine, with input as the axons projecting
>into the brain, and output as the axons projecting out of the brain, if
Why exclude the neurons in the brain?
>you believe that the laws of physics are deterministic (ignoring quantum
>mechanics), then it seems that the brain must be deterministic. This
Ignoring QM: how can you do that?! Anyway, my argument is not dependent
on QM: I'm not talking physics, I'm talking cybernetics.
>seems to contradict our ideas of consciousness and free-will, but it
>seems to me that you have invoke religous arguments for a soul to get
>free will.
Not so and I don't. Traditionally, the scientific focus has been on
linear systems. Even then we still have the show-stopper of the 3 (or more)
body problem. The activity in the brain is certainly non-linear and no
one claims to have a theory to account for it.
> Of course, the brain has so many neurons, and there is so much going on
>in the brain with neuromodulators and other things we don't understand
>very well, that there is no way that we could predict responses, but it
>seems to me that the brain is ultimately deterministic.
Possibly, but I don't think so and one example is that of choice, which
I consider to be a real phenomenon in need of explanation.
Richard
