Mr Spinkles
Mr
bobhikes I still think there are physical links here. Even the nervous systems of insects are incredibly complex data processors, which can recognize pattens in their environment and even plan and make rudimentary choices in ways we don't yet understand. We know our ability to recognize patterns and draw conclusions from them depends on the physical brain, and we know all those firing neurons obey the same laws of physics and chemistry as everything else. You're trying to say there's no causal link, but I think there is, it's just quite complicated. Imagine sending a computer with advanced AI back in time hundreds of years ago to whip people at chess. The ancients might have no idea how a computer works, they might not be able to establish every physical link in the chain of the 10^9 calculations per second the computer is doing, they might have no way of predicting the computer's moves based on its input stimulus. But, they would have good reason to suspect this machine still depends on the laws of physics .... especially when they pull the plug and it no longer works. The same is true of the human brain, mammalian brains and, indeed, the almost incomprehensibly complex data processors that constitute the nervous systems of even the simplest organisms, like a cockroach.bobhikes said:
The understanding that occurs when you read a word on a page does not come from outside the causal chain of physical events in this universe ... a lot of cogs and gears and wheels turning in our heads are necessary for this to happen.
