My favorite is: "What distinguishes the human brain from a sufficiently advanced artificial counterpart?"

All, 100% of human brains are different from one another, because of all sorts of genetic and developmental factors. Even if you made an artificial computer that was equivalent to a single brain at a single point in time, the computer could not be damaged, repair, remodel, and grow the same way as the human brain. This also pertains to the pathology a brain can have. And the computer would not even be remotely like ALL brains.

Abstract thought witch is necessary for life and reason, This sentient being would not be capable of.

People can make machines (e.g. a computer). Computers cannot make people.

Rich

Irrelevant? Not only is it relevant. It is the irrefutable difference. Sometimes, things are much more simple than you would like it to be. You can pack natural and neural networks away in a bag. If you can show me a computer than can make a person, then I will call them equivalent. BTW, anyone should feel free to use my answer in their next philosophy class. It will end the discussion very quickly.

Rich

Even a roach can make another roach.

Seriously. Put a computer in the middle of a desert (with or without another computer of same or opposite sex), come back in a thousand years, and see how well they have multiplied.

Rich

but as of the Present, humans create computers and not vice-versa.

Rich

A reminder: the original question was "What distinguishes the human brain from a sufficiently advanced artificial counterpart?"

Also: I'm not talking about the ability of an artificial brain to "create humans". A human brain, in itself, can't do that either. I am talking about intelligence. Given the right effectors, an artificial brain could of course do a hell of a lot.

Well, I am not going to enter into the notion of what is intelligence and where it is housed. However, I will relate you this: When my wife and I decided to have a child, we knew just what to do and how to do it. Pretty intelligent. No? Let a computer figure that out. And, btw, our child is plenty intelligent and has a brain all of its own.

Rich

You're not comparing apples and apples.

Given the appropriate sensors and effectors, a sufficiently advanced machine could replicate the machinery of human biology. Why it would want to do so is a more interesting question, but it is possible.

You can't just ask a brain sitting on a counter to create a human. Likewise, you can't ask a computer with no sensors and effectors to create anything outside of itself. It's silly.

Given the appropiate sensors and effectors, a sufficiently advanced sofa can travel the time.

Or

Given the appropiate sensors and effectors, a sufficiently advanced T-Shirt can feel human emotions.

Please, can you make me understand the difference from your previous sentence (the underline one) and mine?

Remember that we maybe have a wrong perception of the science development. We think that science is a bit too far sometimes.

Anyway, there is alway that little Decarte's problem when you try to say that something outside us has the same laws of what is inside us.

What distinguishes the human brain from a sufficiently advanced artificial counterpart?"

One fundamental difference is the way in which they store memory.

Humans are creative entities, computers are determined entities.

Well, I am not going to enter into the notion of what is intelligence and where it is housed. However, I will relate you this: When my wife and I decided to have a child, we knew just what to do and how to do it. Pretty intelligent. No? Let a computer figure that out. And, btw, our child is plenty intelligent and has a brain all of its own.

Rich

Humans are creative entities, computers are determined entities. Cheese and chalk.

You're not comparing apples and apples.

Given the appropriate sensors and effectors, a sufficiently advanced machine could replicate the machinery of human biology. Why it would want to do so is a more interesting question, but it is possible.

You can't just ask a brain sitting on a counter to create a human. Likewise, you can't ask a computer with no sensors and effectors to create anything outside of itself. It's silly.

We are talking about brains and computers, thinking things, so what matters is not the capacity to create, but the capacity to plan the creation.

Honestly, I don't even think we need a human being to out intelligent a computer. Heck, put a computer in the middle of a desert, and it will just stay there and rot away.

Basically, the computer is really, really stupid (I hope my PC is not reading this), but, heck they do make good sci-fi (2001 - A Space Odyssey) and the do let us put silly stuff on Facebook. As far as which causes more stress, I would say a computer, since a roach will readily succumb to Raid, while I still haven't found good anti-virus software for the PC).

Well, that is a fine line if I ever heard one. Now, did Eisstein think about relativity or did he create it? Hmmm ...

That's why you give the computer sensors, to notice "It's hot!" and effectors, like legs, or wheels, so that it can get out of there

If you leave a human brain in the desert, it's also just going to bake, derp

(Actually reading my posts will greatly increase your credibility in this argument)



This is just hokey. An artificial intelligence will not have an "operating system".



All creative thought is memory

I know humans will give computer sensors. We are more intelligent than the computer, that is why. Humans and roaches can adapt. Much, much more intelligent than computers, which are just little programs that do the same thing over and over again.

I know AI people want to make it more than that. That is how they get research grants.

Please please please read about the basics of computer science, artificial intelligence and neuroscience before you spout something like this again, ok?

The brain is a computer. It may be evolved, but it is still a kind of neural computer. A neuron adds up its inputs, compares them to a threshold, and then emits or omits another electrical signal accordingly. Multiply by 100 billion and you can really go places with neurons. Artificial and biological neurons are no different in this respect.



They're also doing a good job, it should be mentioned.

I'll take the intelligence of a cockroach over a computer any time.

While you may be enamored by a piece of metal that cranks out stuff very fast, I am more enamored by a species that has successfully managed to preserve itself for millions of years. It is a matter of taste, I believe.

If you want to adulate something because it's really old, go with hydrogen instead. It's been around for billions of years.

Regardless I really don't see how any of this is relevant: you haven't refuted my assertion that a sufficiently advanced artificial neural network would be equivalent to a human brain.

But I think those little neural, supercycle computers with advanced TNT operating systems have a ways to go.

They cannot understand simple English sentences yet.

Well time travel isn't possible at any rate



None. Why would there be a difference? You're raising an arbitrary and unnecessary distinction



Maybe but I'd have to say ENIAC -> nascent artificial brain research in less than 100 years is pretty damn fast



That's dubious