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Do you worry that you've died and a new, unrelated consciousness born every time a cosmic ray pops a single electron in your brain up to a higher orbit? It seem
by khafra 16y ago
Do you worry that you've died and a new, unrelated consciousness born every time a cosmic ray pops a single electron in your brain up to a higher orbit? It seems obvious from the amount of mechanical or chemical intervention that's required to create a detectable change in consciousness that the human substrate for consciousness only matters at a far more macroscopic level than the quantum.
Also, I think that the amount of worry you experience over whether a computational substrate running software designed without consciousness in mind can suffer is a very, very, very poor proxy for the question of whether machine sentience is possible. Think about it. If you did have a magical hypercomputer, and a program running on it which ran a perfect quantum simulation of a human baby in unbearable pain, would you remain completely blasé?
- tgflynn 16y agoA superconductor doesn't stop being a superconductor if a cosmic ray ejects one of its electrons. It would however be erroneous to conclude from that fact that quantum mechanics plays no role in superconductivity.
- adrianN 16y agoWell obviously everything is based on quantum effects. When a transistor changes its state, quantum effects need to happen. But I don't think it's legitimate to postulate that the whole complexity of the quantum state is necessary to simulate the behaviour of a transistor.
- khafra 16y agoI don't think your true objection is based on quantum mechanics. Based especially on one comment[1], I think you're making a hidden assertion that subjective experiences carry moral weight only if they cannot be explained in terms of other understood phenomena. I'd like to examine this assertion: If someone could prove to your satisfaction that your present conscious substrate is something other than a human brain--say, a computer program with inputs provided by an advanced android body in the real world--would you consent to undergo the proverbial 50 years of torture in exchange for a dollar donated to your favorite charity? [1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2215074 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2215074