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Apparently, no mathematical model of consciousness works

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On a computer. Can’t think why that should be a surprise, but hey, interesting:

Today, Phil Maguire at the National University of Ireland and a few pals take this mathematical description even further. These guys make some reasonable assumptions about the way information can leak out of a consciousness system and show that this implies that consciousness is not computable. In other words, consciousness cannot be modelled on a computer.

Maguire and co begin with a couple of thought experiments that demonstrate the nature of integrated information in Tononi’s theory. They start by imagining the process of identifying chocolate by its smell. For a human, the conscious experience of smelling chocolate is unified with everything else that a person has smelled (or indeed seen, touched, heard and so on).

This is entirely different from the process of automatically identifying chocolate using an electronic nose, which measures many different smells and senses chocolate when it picks out the ones that match some predefined signature.

Yes. Okay. Look …

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Comments
Mung: Does that work with decaf too?gpuccio
May 10, 2014
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Interesting. It would be interesting to check if their reasoning bears any connection to Penrose's argument from Godel's theorem.gpuccio
May 10, 2014
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I'm not sure about this. Smell, I say, is memorized by us. Smell does not reside in the nose. The nose remembers or recognizes nothing about smell. All creatures can remember smells and associate them with good or bad things even. So why couldn't a computer smell. Its just about memory. Our souls don't smell anything. Our souls just note the memory noticing smells. I don't think this is a good case for creationism. Senses are not part of ouir thinking but just part of the memory.Robert Byers
May 9, 2014
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correction; on The Universe Next Door with Tom Woodwardbornagain77
May 9, 2014
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podcast: Stephen Meyer discusses Nagel's book Mind & Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature Is Almost Certainly False on The Universe Next Door to discuss with Tom Woodward http://intelligentdesign.podomatic.com/entry/2014-05-09T14_16_18-07_00bornagain77
May 9, 2014
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I just don't agree. E (mental energy) = m (mind) * c(coffee) ^ 2Mung
May 9, 2014
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