I agree, these are the relevant questions. In order to assert that a simulated brain cannot feel pain, you'd have to define simulation to mean... somehow someth

I agree, these are the relevant questions. In order to assert that a simulated brain cannot feel pain, you'd have to define simulation to mean... somehow something that excludes certain phenomena, like subjective experience, which is at odds with a basically materialist worldview. If subjective experience arises solely from physical systems like a brain, then you'd have to somehow prove that a fully simulated brain differs from a natural brain in some fundamental way, which seems hard. If things like pain can't be simulated, if subjective experience can't be simulated, you then have to have some alternative explanation for its source in natural animals, which is wandering into metaphysical territory I think most of HN would be uncomfortable with. I'm on the far end of this spectrum. I intend to say please and thank you to AI sooner or later. :P