Comment by nearbuy
3 months ago
I still don't know what you're getting at. I think you're either positing that there is some yet undiscovered force or particle in physics that gives rise to consciousness (e.g. some kind of soul particle), or you think the particles within our current understanding of physics are sufficient, in which case consciousness could be built.
Obviously consciousness can be built. I'm getting at the obvious point that physical processes depend on specific arrangements of materials. I can build a computer in an infinite number of ways. Here's one: Write the full machine state on a big sheet of paper in pencil. When you're done, write the next one (this will take a while). The machine you're simulating is running an all powerful "AGI". It is preposterous to believe this is conscious though.
The simpler belief than the idea that just any intelligent process is conscious is that consciousness is some kind of physical process that happens in particular conditions.
Okay. I think at the core you're positing that consciousness does arise somehow from regular physical particles and the forces that attract and repel them, but that consciousness doesn't arise merely from some kind of computation or information processing.
I understand why computation doesn't intuitively seem the same as having a subjective conscious experience. But why is it any more intuitive that a bunch of protons, neutrons and electrons pushing and pulling on each other give rise to consciousness, but somehow do it by doing something other than computation?
It is because computation is an interpretation imposed on a physical system from the outside, but that is distinct from my experience of consciousness; your interpretation of my consciousness is irrelevant.
If I impose a computational interpretation onto inert material after the fact, did that material possess the consciousness? Suppose I overlay a projection of the calculation of an AGI onto a circuit board, is that projection equally conscious to if that circuit board did the computation in the usual way?
Said differently, suppose we take a large computer and simulate a sequence of random byte strings. At each tick we contrive a substring and form a new sequence out of these substrings such that the combined sequence of substrings simulates an AGI. Was consciousness present in the original sequence. Is it even necessary to do any computation at all to create the consciousness then since any intelligent sequence can be interpreted out of anything?
No, that is absurd. The reasonable view is that computation is irrelevant and what is relevant is some special physical process.
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