But from that he tacitly draw the conclusion (it seemed to me at last after a single view of the dialogue) that also [general] intelligence is depending on that assumption.
No, Pigliucci agrees that it might be possible to get an intelligence (e.g., that passes the Turing test) through the computer system. He just does not think that you can call it a human intelligence.
He thinks the concept of “mind uploading” is silly because the human mind (and intelligence) is therefore fundamentally different from this computer mind. He also argues that the human mind is inseparable from the biological construction. I have to admit I am not surprised that this argument is coming from a biologist. To a physicist or an engineer, almost all problems and constructs are computational, and it’s just a matter of figuring out the proper model. As a biologist, it is more difficult to see how living entities follow similar sorts of fundamental rules. In objecting to the computational theory of mind, Pigliucci objects to the computational theory of reality, and in essence, he contradicts himself. He reveals himself to be a dualist. I think he is confusing the mathematical or logical abstraction of a system (not dualistic) with the physical or material abstraction (dualistic).
No, Pigliucci agrees that it might be possible to get an intelligence (e.g., that passes the Turing test) through the computer system. He just does not think that you can call it a human intelligence.
He thinks the concept of “mind uploading” is silly because the human mind (and intelligence) is therefore fundamentally different from this computer mind. He also argues that the human mind is inseparable from the biological construction. I have to admit I am not surprised that this argument is coming from a biologist. To a physicist or an engineer, almost all problems and constructs are computational, and it’s just a matter of figuring out the proper model. As a biologist, it is more difficult to see how living entities follow similar sorts of fundamental rules. In objecting to the computational theory of mind, Pigliucci objects to the computational theory of reality, and in essence, he contradicts himself. He reveals himself to be a dualist. I think he is confusing the mathematical or logical abstraction of a system (not dualistic) with the physical or material abstraction (dualistic).