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00002 00002 BGB XX APR TO WILKS ON MIND AND MATTER.
00005 00003 Philosophy, mirabule dictu, has many definitions ! It is
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BGB XX APR TO WILKS ON MIND AND MATTER.
In my philosophy, the solution to the mind-matter problem is
that mind is software running in hardware which is made of matter.
In
my philosophy, the problem of matter and mind is to give a specific
definition of the two terms and to explain the experiences commonly
associated with the terms.
Now with respect to intellectual entities, (you and me and
the PDP-10 serial #32) the hardware consists of memory, interpreter
and IO-equipment. The mind or software consists of a goal
seeking world simulator. The world simulator program simulates the
reality world and a number of fantasy worlds. The reality world
simulation is kept closely in sync with perceived data and gives the
mind or self those nice displays of its immediate here and now, as
well as that nice monologue called the stream of counsciousness, as
well as an emotional now feeling which remains when you close your
eyes and stop your little voice. When the simulator stops as when you
faint, or are gassed, drugged, or struck unconscious; the mind does
not exist for a while because the goal seeking world simulator is not
running; however the mind can be continued because the hardware
memory persists inert thru time even without the simulator. When you
are asleep the simulator can run without much sense data, this is
called dreaming. When you are dead the hardware memory and
interpreter and mind have been destroyed.
Philosophy, mirabule dictu, has many definitions ! It is
that of which I shall be officially declared a doctor; being not
medicine, law or theology. It is that which is love or pursuit of
wisdom. It is the search for truth through logical reasoning rather
than factual analysis. It is a two thousand year tradition of nettled
literature written by cranky old men. The notion of "my philosophy"
expounded above is that corresponding to crank personal opinion
(weltanschauung) without any supporting scientific evidence.
In this sense, for me the philosophical problem is solved, I have
an working explaination which is to me is personally satisfactory
and which suggests a number of experiments and projects.
I challenge you, Yorick Wilks, to state what for you
is the philosophical problem with respect to mind and matter (or
if you prefer) what is the mind and matter problem of "philosophy".
Now in order to make my opinion of mind and matter the
scientifically accepted solution to the mind and matter problem
I believe that first I have to construct a robot which will indeed have
an internal mind experience like I have. However, making such
a robot is not fully convincing (no matter how well
it passes the Turing test) but is merely an exercise
for my next two hacks, which would be to connect myself to the
robot so that I could experience its mind and finally to
look at the minute physical operations of my own mind.
In this I would be me the observer, me the robot, and me the brain
surgeon who is sticking a probe into his own head. This for me
is the crucial argument and I surely will have the NECESSARY AUTHORITY
to say whether the physical world states, as I probe around,
correspond to my internal mind states or to the
internal mind states of my robot which is a
smaller intellectual entity than myself. The matter would be
scientifically public in that
I would publish what apparatus and
procedures you could follow in order to connect your mind to a
small synthetic intellectual entity (or even a natural
intellectual entity such as a cat or a worm).
At that point Yorick can take it or leave it; although Macays'
argument of total self comprehension in real time is indeed
a paradox; I as a super human cyborg robot android could feel
that my "macay total" scientific comprehension of a human mind
is a scientifically valid
explaination of my mind to an intellectual entity larger than
myself although necessarily inaccessible to me. Well now a
PDP-8 is a simple totally explicable mind to a CDC-6600.