Hans Moravec
Hans Moravec argues from the functionalist perspective that human consciousness is a property of computational organization rather than of biological material. In Mind Children: The Future of Robot and Human Intelligence (Harvard University Press, 1988, ISBN 0-674-57616-0), he formulated the gradual neuron replacement scenario to bypass the paradoxes of destructive scanning and copying.
His position holds that if each biological neuron is replaced one at a time by an electronic device that precisely mimics its input-output behavior, the brain’s overall functional dynamics remain undisturbed at every step. Because the informational interactions between neurons are preserved without interruption, Moravec concludes that subjective experience must continue unbroken across the transition, resulting in a fully synthetic mind that is a direct continuation of the biological original.
This argument forms the historical foundation for computational theories of mind uploading. It has drawn significant critique from biological naturalists such as John Searle and Ned Block, who argue that duplicating computational input-output mappings does not guarantee the duplication of the neurobiological causal powers that produce phenomenal experience.
Known for. The Moravec transfer thought experiment, Moravec's paradox in robotics, author of Mind Children (1988)
Coverage on this site
Every researcher covered on this site is indexed in the directory of consciousness researchers, grouped by the position their published work defends. The positions themselves are set out in the index of consciousness theories.