> Let's imagine that we simulate the brain in all biological details on a supercomputer. Will that supercomputer be conscious? > Christof Koch: No. It doesn't

> Let's imagine that we simulate the brain in all biological details on a supercomputer. Will that supercomputer be conscious? > Christof Koch: No. It doesn't matter whether the Von Neumann machine is running a weather simulation, playing poker, or simulating the human brain; its integrated information is minute. Consciousness is not about computation; it's a causal power associated with the physics of the system. I find this claim, proclaimed with certainty, strange (not to use much stronger words). Unless one follows some highly non-mainstream interpretation of consciousness it seems that consciousness is purely an information phenomenon, not depending on a particular interpretation. For that, we need a fundamentally new physics (vide Roger Penrose), or we run into mysticism. The claim in the interview suggests a position much stronger than claiming that Searle's Chinese room is not thinking.