Re: Apple II and God (was Re: Notice to Scott Gamon)

[amitai.schlair@usa.net (Amitai Schlair)]

Rubywand <rubywand@swbell.net> wrote:

> Amitai Schlair writes ...
> > 
> > ....
> > It seems that you don't want to confront the fundamental question of
> > God's existence.
[snip]
>      How would you go about producing a self-aware computer?

You're trying to draw unfounded parallels between self-aware humans and
self-aware computers. In addition to being a loaded question, it begs
several others:

1) What does it mean to be "self-aware"?

    a) Is a computer that can be programmed to display the contents of
       its motherboard self-aware?

    b) Is a person who can be taught to say which portions of his brain
       correspond to which functions self-aware?

2) How did humans come to exist?

    a) Were we created by a prime creator (which begs the question "Who
       created the creator?")?

    b) Or did we grow/evolve out of natural conditions?

3) If a computer were to become self-aware, would this condition
   necessarily/provably be due to a human creator?

An aside: the number of humans who are truly self-aware (according to my
definition) is very small. Not that this refutes human self-awareness,
of course -- you might explain this by saying that God has withheld the
burden of self-awareness from all but the worthiest humans, or something
like that. But I digress... (or do I? or is this entire thread a
digression? I'm not sure any more. :)

More seriously, what would be the characteristics of a self-aware
computer? A Mac, for example, has instructions in its ROM which tell it
where to look for appendages and how to check to see if they work. But
Macs are "blessed" with ROMs of "divine" human creation... Would you say
a computer which could design its own self-check routines is self-aware?
I might be inclined to agree, but how would a computer get this ability?