> All of the "assumptions" in that link are correct, with the exception of 6 as a flawed intuition pump. A human being is not capable of emulating a suffering b

> All of the "assumptions" in that link are correct, with the exception of 6 as a flawed intuition pump. A human being is not capable of emulating a suffering being by marking ones and zeroes in a notebook Ironically enough, you too are rejecting this assumption, not on its own merits, but because you dislike its eventual conclusion. Here's the exact assumption as stated: > Assumption 6: Anything a computer does can be functionally replicated by a human being writing 1s and 0s in a massive ledger. Are you truly rejecting this assumption? It is almost trivially true. I know in detail exactly how a CPU works. All it does is perform extremely simple calculations, and then write/read the resulting 1s and 0s from various storage locations. I've literally solved exam problems where I had to debug/replicate a computer's behavior by writing 1s and 0s on a piece of paper. If your point is that humans are far too slow to replicate anything a computer does, then I will refer you to the previous assumption which you stated to be correct: > Assumption 5: The fact that a computer simulation can be conscious, is independent of the CPU speed of the computer. If your point is that human lifespans are too short to run any meaningful computer program, then I will ask you this: If we did achieve human immortality, and if someone did use their immortality to do exactly what the article suggests (writing 1s and 0s in a massive book), should they be found guilty of torture and murder? > why is it so plausible that consciousness can exist on the 3 pound lump of jelly in your head? Isn't your argument too strong? What makes brains special? That's the whole point of the article. There's nothing special about our brains, or about any other 3 pound lump of jelly. Consciousness requires both physical phenomena as well as supernatural phenomena, and without the latter, our brains would not possess consciousness either. We clearly have to reject one of the assumptions/conclusion, and the most reasonable one to reject is the assumption that consciousness can arise from purely physical phenomena. All the others assumptions are much more logically defensible, whereas the first assumption is nothing more than conjecture.