Re: [asa] Quantum quackery

I don't claim any scientific expertise about the nature of consciousness. Of course the underlying physics of the brain is quantum mechanical but the brain is a macroscopic object & I don't know of any reason to think that it manifests distinctively QM - let alone quantum gravitational - behavior: Penrose's arguments about microtubules &c (which I haven't looked at for quite a while) don't seem terribly convincing. (The fact that they don't seem convincing to me doesn't mean much but I gather that they also don't seem to be convincing to those who are experts.)

OTOH I see no compelling theological reason why genuine AI, in the strong sense, couldn't exist - contrary, e.g., to the arguments of Stanly Jaki.

One very helpful approach to the question of AI is Noreen Herzfeld's In Our Image (Fortress, 2002). Instead of dealing with questions about the possibility of AI she asks why we - or some of us - are so interested in developing it, or are afraid of it. She explores those issues with the idea that just as humanity is created as "the image of God," AI might be considered as being made "in the image of the human," & then explores possible meanings of AI in parallel with various ideas of what the imago dei has meant theologically - reason, regency, or relationship. My more detailed review is in the OCtober 2003 issue of Theology and Science.

Shalom
George
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
  ----- Original Message -----
  From: Iain Strachan
  To: George Murphy
  Cc: bdffoster@charter.net ; asa@calvin.edu ; Carol or John Burgeson
  Sent: Thursday, September 20, 2007 8:41 AM
  Subject: Re: [asa] Quantum quackery

  George wrote in part:

    With all due respect to Penrose & Smolin, I'm dubious of any claims that consciousness can be derived from QM. However, a case can be made for the idea that the reduction of the wave packet (i.e., a definite result of a measurement) occurs when consciousness comes into the picture. (E.g., the cat lives or dies when a conscious observer opens the box & looks.) Note that that there consciousness is assumed in order to interpret QM (& not that it is derived from QM).

  I'd be interested to know what your own thoughts and speculations about the nature of consciousness might be, and how they relate to science/faith. There seem to be two camps of thought:

  (1) The "Strong AI" hypothesis - that consciousness will be an emergent property of a sufficiently large neural network that can be simulated on a computer algorithm. People such as Doug Hofstadter and Ray Kurzweil are proponents of this idea. Also an aquaintance of mine who is a Prof. at Oxford University in statistical pattern recognition who stated (semi-seriously) that a research objective was "to download my brain into a computer so I don't have to die".

  (2) The opponents of "Strong AI", of whom Roger Penrose is one of the chief proponents, who argue that an algorithm will never be conscious, and that there are bits of fundamental physics that we've not yet understood that would be at the heart of it. Penrose maintains it is due to quantum gravity, but I'm not sure how much this is because that, too is an unsolved area.

  What are your thoughts on this, George? If we could transplant our consciousnesses onto a computer, for instance, would there be theological implications?

  Iain

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Received on Fri Sep 21 06:57:34 2007