It’s interesting that you care about what the alien thinks. Normally people say that the most important property of consciousness is its subjectivity. Like, people tend to say things like “Is there something that it’s like to be that person, experiencing their own consciousness?”, rather than “Is there externally-legible indication that there’s consciousness going on here?”.
Thus, I would say: the simulation contains a conscious entity, to the same extent that I am a conscious entity. Whether aliens can figure out that fact is irrelevant.
I do agree with the narrow point that a simulation of consciousness can be externally illegible, i.e. that you can manifest something that’s conscious to the same extent that I am, in a way where third parties will be unable to figure out whether you’ve done that or not. I think a cleaner example than the ones you mentioned is: a physics simulation that might or might not contain a conscious mind, running under homomorphic encryption with a 100000-bit key, and where all copies of the key have long ago been deleted.
Whether aliens can figure out that fact is irrelevant.
To be clear, would you say that you are disagreeing with “Premise 2” above here?
Premise 2: Phenomenal consciousness is a natural kind: There is an objective fact-of-the-matter whether a conscious experience is occurring, and what that experience is. It is not observer-dependent. It is not down to interpretation. It is an intrinsic property of a system. It is the territory rather than a map.
I don’t think Premise 2 is related to my comment. I think it’s possible to agree with premise 2 (“there is an objective fact-of-the-matter whether a conscious experience is occurring”), but also to say that there are cases where it is impossible-in-practice for aliens to figure out that fact-of-the-matter.
By analogy, I can write down a trillion-digit number N, and there will be an objective fact-of-the-matter about what is the prime factorization of N, but it might take more compute than fits in the observable universe to find out that fact-of-the-matter.
It’s interesting that you care about what the alien thinks. Normally people say that the most important property of consciousness is its subjectivity. Like, people tend to say things like “Is there something that it’s like to be that person, experiencing their own consciousness?”, rather than “Is there externally-legible indication that there’s consciousness going on here?”.
Thus, I would say: the simulation contains a conscious entity, to the same extent that I am a conscious entity. Whether aliens can figure out that fact is irrelevant.
I do agree with the narrow point that a simulation of consciousness can be externally illegible, i.e. that you can manifest something that’s conscious to the same extent that I am, in a way where third parties will be unable to figure out whether you’ve done that or not. I think a cleaner example than the ones you mentioned is: a physics simulation that might or might not contain a conscious mind, running under homomorphic encryption with a 100000-bit key, and where all copies of the key have long ago been deleted.
To be clear, would you say that you are disagreeing with “Premise 2” above here?
I don’t think Premise 2 is related to my comment. I think it’s possible to agree with premise 2 (“there is an objective fact-of-the-matter whether a conscious experience is occurring”), but also to say that there are cases where it is impossible-in-practice for aliens to figure out that fact-of-the-matter.
By analogy, I can write down a trillion-digit number N, and there will be an objective fact-of-the-matter about what is the prime factorization of N, but it might take more compute than fits in the observable universe to find out that fact-of-the-matter.