Arthur C. Clarke 9/9                        ART MATRIX - LIGHTLINK
http://www.lightlink.com/theproof           PO 880 Ithaca, NY 14851-0880
                                            (607) 277-0959      Voice
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                                            homer@lightlink.com E-mail
                                            jes@lightlink.com   E-mail

                                            08/15/07 9:08pm

     Dear Esteemed Sir,

     This is the last of the letters that I have written as part of my
request that you preview this material before I go public with it.

     Please feel free to pass anything I have sent you to those who
might benefit from the material or benefit myself by their comments.

     I want to thank you for offering me the chance to speak my peace to
a man of stature and wisdom, a man who has deeply affected me through my
childhood and adult years with his work.

     The material I have presented is physically, emotionally, mentally
and spiritually tortuous, bordering most of the time on the
preposterous, but remains blindingly simple in principle.

     The thought experiment under question is trivial.

     Define a machine as any system of parts interacting via cause and
effect across a space time distance.

     Put a machine with two video cameras in front of two objects
reflecting two different frequencies of light.

     Task the machine with learning with perfect certainty that the two
objects are there and are emitting two different frequencies of light.

     Can the machine do this *WITH PERFECT CERTAINTY*?

     Put a dreaming conscious unit in front of two different self
luminous conscious experiences, one red and one green.

     Task the conscious unit with learning with perfect certainty that
it is seeing two different colors.

     Can the conscious unit do this?

     The conclusions are as follows.

     Either learning with perfect certainty exists or it doesn't.

     Either a machine can learn with perfect certainty or it can't.

     Either a conscious unit can learn with perfect certainty or it
can't.

     If a conscious unit can, and a machine can't, then consciousness is
not a machine.

     The consequences of this are resounding.

     Your faithful servant,

     Homer Wilson Smith
     Jane Elizabeth Staller

     P.S.  Our ad for the new super computer facility will be hitting
Nature magazine August 30th.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Homer Wilson Smith     The Paths of Lovers    Art Matrix - Lightlink
(607) 277-0959 KC2ITF        Cross            Internet Access, Ithaca NY
homer@lightlink.com    In the Line of Duty    http://www.lightlink.com

Sat Aug 18 00:15:28 EDT 2007