3 ms·
>If we can simulate nuclear reactions, we can simulate consciousness, and that will result in real consciousness. Nuclear -> consciousness doesn't really follo
by ineedasername 4y ago
>If we can simulate nuclear reactions, we can simulate consciousness, and that will result in real consciousness.
Nuclear -> consciousness doesn't really follow, especially when any simulations of nuclear reactions are founded in an extremely more comprehensive understanding of nuclear physics than we have of consciousness.
Next, the implication of simulation -> creation, when applied consistently to you example, is that simulating a nuclear reaction sufficiently well could produce an actual nuclear reaction, but I doubt anyone is going to fat-finger the next Chernobyl by screwing up a simulation.
It may be entirely possible that the tools needed to create a consciousness are as different from those needed to simulate one as are the tools needed to simulate a nuclear reaction from those needed make one.
- samhw 4y agoI don’t quite get this simulation/execution distinction. Consciousness is a function, not an entity. To simulate a function is precisely to execute it. There’s no meaningful distinction whatever. (It’s the second-order distinction between simulating/executing an x86 processor in the abstract, vs simulating/executing a specific identified Intel chip product, if you like.)
- ineedasername 4y agoI think the issue is that the word "simulation", when applied to a nuclear reaction, means something very different than when applied to consciousness, and that creates confusion. If we simulate consciousness then, well, it's really not quite a simulation, it's the thing itself. A better term might be "artificial". The simulation, as with x86, is of the hardware or conditions that allow the function to be executed and not the function itself. In this sense of things, a nuclear reaction isn't a function in the same way that consciousness is a function.
- blafunke 4y agoSimpsons did it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2n23oapBEao https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2n23oapBEao