That seems an odd motte-and-bailey style explanation (and likely, belief. As you say, misgeneralized).
I will agree that humans can execute TINY arbitrary Turing calculations, and slightly less tiny (but still very small) with some external storage. And quite a bit larger with external storage and computation. At what point is the brain not doing the computation is perhaps an important crux in that claim, as is whether the ability to emulate a Turing machine in the conscious/intentional layer is the same as being Turing-complete in the meatware substrate.
And the bailey of “if we can expand storage and speed up computation, then it would be truly general” is kind of tautological, and kind of unjustified without figuring out HOW to expand storage and computation while remaining human.
That seems an odd motte-and-bailey style explanation (and likely, belief. As you say, misgeneralized).
I will agree that humans can execute TINY arbitrary Turing calculations, and slightly less tiny (but still very small) with some external storage. And quite a bit larger with external storage and computation. At what point is the brain not doing the computation is perhaps an important crux in that claim, as is whether the ability to emulate a Turing machine in the conscious/intentional layer is the same as being Turing-complete in the meatware substrate.
And the bailey of “if we can expand storage and speed up computation, then it would be truly general” is kind of tautological, and kind of unjustified without figuring out HOW to expand storage and computation while remaining human.
From my side or theirs?
From their side. Your explanation and arguments against that seem reasonable to me.