Feasibility of the China Brain.

Wiki-link, out of laziness.

What do ya'll think?

And what's more, how hard does everyone would it be to make a program that uses this basic function?

In particular, I'm curious to know how said brain's higher thought processes would work. Reaction and cataloging of stimuli should be easy, but what about casual thought and imagination? Could the China-brain write a book?

Reaction and cataloging of stimuli should be easy,

How do you figure?

What is it with philosophers and China?

I don't think the Chinese brain would work. For one it's not nearly fast enough to be remotely successful at simulating real neurons. Second we'd have to wait years and years for any exciting results, and that would be boring.

How do you figure?

Neuron A sees something. Neuron B writes it down.

Though, that is a gross oversimplification. In reality it would be a lot of people that record a single letter each.

I don't think the Chinese brain would work. For one it's not nearly fast enough to be remotely successful at simulating real neurons. Second we'd have to wait years and years for any exciting results, and that would be boring.

Who cares about speed? Proof of concept is good enough for me.

edited 24th Jan '11 10:33:25 PM by TheMightyAnonym

I think that there are more than a billion neurons in a human brain, so each person would have to simulate multiple neurons. And in practice it would be unsustainable, of course. But I don't see any problem with the ideal.

Neuron A sees something. Neuron B writes it down.

That's not how neurons work.

edited 24th Jan '11 10:34:08 PM by Tzetze

If you slow down a piece of music enough then it kinda stops being music, doesn't it?

I mean um, not taking a prerecorded piece of music and slowing it down. I mean taking the sheet music and putting like 10 minutes in between each note instead of playing it normally.

If you had a hearing apparatus that was slowed the same, it would perceive it as music fine.

That's not how neurons work.

I know; tis why I said "oversimplification". "over" to the point where it stops being realistic.

edited 24th Jan '11 10:38:49 PM by TheMightyAnonym

^^ True...

Could something be conscious and not conscious at the same time?

edited 24th Jan '11 10:42:38 PM by melloncollie

^^But you wouldn't be able to simulate a human brain out of that (without near-impossible software work), so there's no point. The point of the exercise is just to raw-translate neural activity.

^It all depends on your point-of-view.

Oh, frickin relativity.

You might be able to reach something similar, but not quite the same.

Well I don't really see how this is different from the Chinese room argument with respect to computer AI attempts. We've no evidence of our brains being anything more than a biochemical machine, why are we so confident that it cannot be replicated by a non-neuron device?

If you gave everyone in China a free supercomputer and networked them all together, you might have a chance.

To those who say a billion is too few, or that a man is too slow, then let it be a trillion of superhumanly fast Chinese, or whatever is enough. If the Chinese room argument fails because it's the algorithm, or the system as a whole, that is sentient, then China brain should work too, shan't it?

What interests me, is what the it's-the-algorithm folks think of it: if the algorithm is sentient, then, when the Chinese go home, is it a murder?

If the Chinese room argument fails because it's the algorithm, or the system as a whole, that is sentient, then China brain should work too, shan't it?

I'm not sure what this means. The Chinese room would work as well as the China brain would, except that they're both profoundly unrealistic (you'd need a room the size of a planet and more than a billion people, respectively). The ideal would work fine.

As for your question, no clue. Well. If they (or anybody) saved the information and went back to it sometime, the brain would resume as if nothing had occured.

edited 25th Jan '11 11:10:05 AM by Tzetze