Do software-generated "connections" really generate inspiration?

Posted by Manfred
Oct 25, 2007 at 11:57 PM

Cassius.

O.K. As I said I did not want to get too deeply into these issues. But what was behind my cliam was only that some people claim that you can model brain activities or connections between synapses etc. using connections between different bits and bytes, and thus also the corresponding “thoughts, concepts or words” in what we call “mind” with “statements, concepts and words” in the “software.” If we call the first “level 1” and the other “level 2,” I only really meant to talk about level 2.

I am just as skeptical as you seem to be about whether we can actually identify something that goes on at level 1 with what is going on at level 2. (Models are problematic.) But I also think that this question is irrelevant when we worry about how the ideas or words and connections we have stored in some software application may help us in further thinking about these ideas.

I am sorry if I sounded irritated,

Manfred