The linked article is kind of confused, but I don’t know how to answer the general argument, which is related to “Dust Theory”. If there is a computer program that you can run which will be conscious—call it “Program Dave”—there’s a snag you can run into. For any random bit string you give me, I can design a “computer” that, when it “runs” that bit string as a program, it will interpret the bit string as being Program Dave. There’s no obvious way to look at something and tell if it’s “really” a copy of Program Dave or not, because everything is a copy of Program Dave if you look at it the right way.
That seems to trivially follow. It also seems to just push the burden of reduction onto “performed”.
Yes, that’s a big problem.
The linked article is kind of confused, but I don’t know how to answer the general argument, which is related to “Dust Theory”. If there is a computer program that you can run which will be conscious—call it “Program Dave”—there’s a snag you can run into. For any random bit string you give me, I can design a “computer” that, when it “runs” that bit string as a program, it will interpret the bit string as being Program Dave. There’s no obvious way to look at something and tell if it’s “really” a copy of Program Dave or not, because everything is a copy of Program Dave if you look at it the right way.
See also.