I think people get too hung up on computers as being mechanistic. People usually think of symbol manipulation in terms of easy-to-imagine language-like models, but then try to generalize their intuitions to computation in general, which can be unimaginably complicated. It’s perfectly possible to simulate a human on an ordinary classical computer (to arbitrary precision). Would that simulation of a human be conscious, if they matched the behavior of a flesh and blood human almost perfectly, and could output to you via text channel and output things like “well, I sure feel conscious”?
The reason LWers are so confident that this simulation is conscious is because we think of concepts like “consciousness,” to the extent that they exist, as having something to do with the cause of us talking and thinking about consciousness. It’s just like how the concept of “apples” exists because apples exist, and when I correctly think I see an apple, it’s because there’s an apple. Talking about “consciousness” is presumed to be a consequence of our experience with consciousness. And the things we have experience with that we can label “consciousness” are introspective phenomena, physically realized as patterns of neurons firing, that have exact analogies in the simulation. Demanding that one has to be made of flesh to be conscious is not merely chauvinism, it’s a misunderstanding of what we have access to when we encounter consciousness.
I think people get too hung up on computers as being mechanistic. People usually think of symbol manipulation in terms of easy-to-imagine language-like models, but then try to generalize their intuitions to computation in general, which can be unimaginably complicated.
The working of a computer is not unimaginably complicated. Its basis is quite straightforward really. As I said in my answer to MrMind below “As Searle points out the meaning of zeros, ones, logic gates etc. is observer relative in the same way money (not the paper, the meaning) is observer relative and thus ontologically subjective. The electrons are indeed ontologically objective but that is not true regarding the syntactic structures of which they are elements in a computer. Watch this video of Searle explaining this (from 9:12).”.
Talking about “consciousness” is presumed to be a consequence of our experience with consciousness. And the things we have experience with that we can label “consciousness” are introspective phenomena, physically realized as patterns of neurons firing, that have exact analogies in the simulation.
In our debate I am holding the position that there can not be a simulation of consciousness using the current architectural basis of a computer. Searle has provided a logical argument. In my quotes above I show that the state of neuroscience does not point towards a purely digital brain. What is your evidence?
I think people get too hung up on computers as being mechanistic. People usually think of symbol manipulation in terms of easy-to-imagine language-like models, but then try to generalize their intuitions to computation in general, which can be unimaginably complicated. It’s perfectly possible to simulate a human on an ordinary classical computer (to arbitrary precision). Would that simulation of a human be conscious, if they matched the behavior of a flesh and blood human almost perfectly, and could output to you via text channel and output things like “well, I sure feel conscious”?
The reason LWers are so confident that this simulation is conscious is because we think of concepts like “consciousness,” to the extent that they exist, as having something to do with the cause of us talking and thinking about consciousness. It’s just like how the concept of “apples” exists because apples exist, and when I correctly think I see an apple, it’s because there’s an apple. Talking about “consciousness” is presumed to be a consequence of our experience with consciousness. And the things we have experience with that we can label “consciousness” are introspective phenomena, physically realized as patterns of neurons firing, that have exact analogies in the simulation. Demanding that one has to be made of flesh to be conscious is not merely chauvinism, it’s a misunderstanding of what we have access to when we encounter consciousness.
The working of a computer is not unimaginably complicated. Its basis is quite straightforward really. As I said in my answer to MrMind below “As Searle points out the meaning of zeros, ones, logic gates etc. is observer relative in the same way money (not the paper, the meaning) is observer relative and thus ontologically subjective. The electrons are indeed ontologically objective but that is not true regarding the syntactic structures of which they are elements in a computer. Watch this video of Searle explaining this (from 9:12).”.
In our debate I am holding the position that there can not be a simulation of consciousness using the current architectural basis of a computer. Searle has provided a logical argument. In my quotes above I show that the state of neuroscience does not point towards a purely digital brain. What is your evidence?