[stevenhuang]

> Why does the mapping of biological neural networks to silicon substrate imply the human mind is a computer?

Is this a rhetorical question or something, because it seems to me you've answered yourself there. I mean, if the mapping works, what else should it imply besides the consequent?

[yters]

The implication requires a further premise that the mind is reducible to the brain, which we do not know to be true.

[feanaro]

Not just the brain, but the whole body and, even more generally, to phenomena that can be described by physics. Unless you are trying to argue for a non-physical (i.e. magical) soul, the argument is sound.

[yters]

Right, why assume the mind reduces to physics? This is usually how people argue for AGI being inevitable, but assuming the mind reduces to physics is a big assumption. Perhaps we have a physical soul.

[feanaro]

Why not? Everything so far had been reduced to physics; sometimes to at-the-time undiscovered physics.