People in the Computers
See? I'll prove it to you:
"How could anybody claim that the activity going on inside an electronic computer could ever create a real world? Tipler counters that this objection is valid only from a perspective outside the computer. If the computer were powerful enough to simulate consciousness - and, by extension, a whole community of conscious beings - from the viewpoint of the beings within the computer the simulated world would be real ..."
by Paul Davies, The Mind of God, p.124
You might object, saying that computers cannot simulate consciousness. See the next quote, from the following page:
"Imagine the computer simulating a human being. If the simulation were truly accurate, an external human observer who did not know the circumstances would be unable to tell by conversing with the simulation whether it was located in the computer or was a human being in our world."
If someone outside couldn't tell, don't you think the people inside would think they were real, too? After all, we think we're real, but we could just as well be thoughts inside the mind of God. (Although I personally think thoughts inside the mind of God are real, but then so are the people in the computer, to themselves.)
Now you'll be saying that this is all nice and hypothetical, but that no computer really simulates a human being. All I can say is, sometimes the theoretical is more interesting than the practical. And you never know ... computers are getting better and better.
Oh, and a clarification on the title of the book: it's not Christian, it's pantheistic.
Totally different subject: We got a room! Exactly the one we wanted! I'm so happy!
And you all have to come to chapel tomorrow to hear the recording.
"How could anybody claim that the activity going on inside an electronic computer could ever create a real world? Tipler counters that this objection is valid only from a perspective outside the computer. If the computer were powerful enough to simulate consciousness - and, by extension, a whole community of conscious beings - from the viewpoint of the beings within the computer the simulated world would be real ..."
by Paul Davies, The Mind of God, p.124
You might object, saying that computers cannot simulate consciousness. See the next quote, from the following page:
"Imagine the computer simulating a human being. If the simulation were truly accurate, an external human observer who did not know the circumstances would be unable to tell by conversing with the simulation whether it was located in the computer or was a human being in our world."
If someone outside couldn't tell, don't you think the people inside would think they were real, too? After all, we think we're real, but we could just as well be thoughts inside the mind of God. (Although I personally think thoughts inside the mind of God are real, but then so are the people in the computer, to themselves.)
Now you'll be saying that this is all nice and hypothetical, but that no computer really simulates a human being. All I can say is, sometimes the theoretical is more interesting than the practical. And you never know ... computers are getting better and better.
Oh, and a clarification on the title of the book: it's not Christian, it's pantheistic.
Totally different subject: We got a room! Exactly the one we wanted! I'm so happy!
And you all have to come to chapel tomorrow to hear the recording.
posted by Captain Shar | 11:05 PM
3 Comments:
Of course, if you do accept this theory, it leads to the conclusion that we are in fact creating little people in the computers. If we can only make the computers human enough, we will be like God...hmm. Sound familiar? Kinda sketchy. Also, it would lead to the supposition that perhaps God is himself only one person in an even bigger computer...and where does it end? Not with the Christian concept of God, I would say. Therefore, also kinda sketchy.
Then you are a solipsist.
Liz - we are already "like God" - we make all kinds of things. If that's not right, I'd take it up with Genesis chapter 1.
Next, your problem is not introduced by my computer idea. There's always the question of "how far back does it go?" Of course I believe that God is self-sufficient; but one could imagine otherwise without computers.
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