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I would, yes, though I'd be careful about drawing comparisons in this regard between computer programs (as we know them today) and the phenomenon that we call c
by vectorpush 10y ago
I would, yes, though I'd be careful about drawing comparisons in this regard between computer programs (as we know them today) and the phenomenon that we call consciousness, since the framework of computation deliberately extricates the essence of a program from the physical phenomena that underpins its existence.
- SilasX 10y agoOkay, but then you're just moving the debate over a few feet rather than addressing the core point: can a human likewise be abstracted away to some substrate-independent program such that we lose nothing by deleting some running copies? Can we build a box that gives us the same answers Bill Gates would, and causes us to deem it "another Bill Gates" without confusion, modulo having a body and physical access to the world?
- vectorpush 10y ago> can a human likewise be abstracted away to some substrate-independent program such that we lose nothing by deleting some running copies Oh. Well, assuming our current model of computation, I think a "substrate-independent" human program is essentially non-human by definition (that is to say, lacking the particular qualities of 'consciousness' that we commonly ascribe to humans), so I'd conclude that "nothing is lost" insomuch as "nothing existed" in the first place. In theory, it seems plausible that we could create a program that could consistently pass a "Bill Gates" Turing test, but it is easy for a programmer to imagine how such a program could exist without actually being conscious.