Re: defining “mind”—not a big deal. I just mean a nervous system—so a dedicated signal processing system with I/O, memory and processsing capabilities.
Any nervous system? That seems like a bad idea. Is a standard neural net trained to recognize human faces a mind? Is a hand-calculator a mind? Also, how does one define having a memory and processing capabilities. For example, does an abacus have a mind? What about a slide rule? What about a Pascaline or an Arithmometer?
I just meant “brain”. So: caclulator—yes, computer—yes.
Those other systems are rather trivial. Most conceptions of what constitutes a nervous system is run into the “how many hairs make a beard” issue at the lower end—it isn’t a big deal for most purposes.
Any nervous system? That seems like a bad idea. Is a standard neural net trained to recognize human faces a mind? Is a hand-calculator a mind? Also, how does one define having a memory and processing capabilities. For example, does an abacus have a mind? What about a slide rule? What about a Pascaline or an Arithmometer?
I just meant “brain”. So: caclulator—yes, computer—yes.
Those other systems are rather trivial. Most conceptions of what constitutes a nervous system is run into the “how many hairs make a beard” issue at the lower end—it isn’t a big deal for most purposes.