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I think a distinction can be made between the two. The brain can manipulate symbols, but it's not clear that it's the symbol manipulation itself that causes co

I think a distinction can be made between the two. The brain can manipulate symbols, but it's not clear that it's the symbol manipulation itself that causes consciousness. A computer simulation doesn't actually fire neurons, it manipulates symbols representing neurons(to us) in a way that could be interpreted as firing. Those two things are very different, despite the fact that they both use electricity. Again, there's a difference between a physical thing vs an accurate representation of a thing by other physical means. As a thought experiment, would it be possible to create consciousness using pen and paper calculation? Perform the same calculations by hand, multithread it by using billions of people performing the same symbol manipulation we would have otherwise performed on the computer. I argue all that project would produce is a large stack of paper and ink. I would argue that it's not the act of manipulating symbols that gives rise to consciousness(since it's the only thing the computer and paper methods have in common), rather that something qualitatively different is happening in the brain.

AllegedAlec 7y ago
> Again, there's a difference between a physical thing vs an accurate representation of a thing by other physical means. A late reply, perhaps, but: - Does the physicality matter all that much here? For sake of argument, let's assume that I have an infinitely powerful computer, which simulates a brain perfectly, down to the last atom. Would the thing inside my simulation not be conscious, and if so, why not? > As a thought experiment, would it be possible to create consciousness using pen and paper calculation? Perform the same calculations by hand, multithread it by using billions of people performing the same symbol manipulation we would have otherwise performed on the computer. I don't see why not, to be honest. That is: given enough computing power and enough knowledge on how it works. > I would argue that it's not the act of manipulating symbols that gives rise to consciousness(since it's the only thing the computer and paper methods have in common), rather that something qualitatively different is happening in the brain. I must admit: I'm a Hofstadterian in this; I agree with his conclusions that consciousness, as we describe it, is an emergent property caused by the act of manipulating symbols representing ideas and concepts in a self/circularly referencing manner.

AllegedAlec 7y ago

> Again, there's a difference between a physical thing vs an accurate representation of a thing by other physical means. A late reply, perhaps, but: - Does the physicality matter all that much here? For sake of argument, let's assume that I have an infinitely powerful computer, which simulates a brain perfectly, down to the last atom. Would the thing inside my simulation not be conscious, and if so, why not? > As a thought experiment, would it be possible to create consciousness using pen and paper calculation? Perform the same calculations by hand, multithread it by using billions of people performing the same symbol manipulation we would have otherwise performed on the computer. I don't see why not, to be honest. That is: given enough computing power and enough knowledge on how it works. > I would argue that it's not the act of manipulating symbols that gives rise to consciousness(since it's the only thing the computer and paper methods have in common), rather that something qualitatively different is happening in the brain. I must admit: I'm a Hofstadterian in this; I agree with his conclusions that consciousness, as we describe it, is an emergent property caused by the act of manipulating symbols representing ideas and concepts in a self/circularly referencing manner.