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I said "non-abstract" to prevent a claim along the lines of: computation is sufficient to produce consciousness but it needs to actually run to do it and that i

I said "non-abstract" to prevent a claim along the lines of: computation is sufficient to produce consciousness but it needs to actually run to do it and that invariably requires implementing the computation on some physical system. The point is that computation is abstract, it requires you to pick some physical system but it doesn't care which one, the result is the same regardless. If a non-abstract physical system is required it means that the actual hardware matters. You can't swap it out for another system and expect the same results. For example I could imagine some kind of computer that computes using water and there happens to be a program which when run on that hardware sprays you with water, hence making you wet. But if instead you run that same program compiled for some non-water based architecture then running it won't make you wet.

simonh 4y ago
Ok, so a computer with a water sprinkler attachment. Sorry, I'm not trying to be flippant, the point is any such system would be more than just a CPU, it would need interfaces with the outside world. It could have whatever peripheral systems you like. It could have quantum computational elements, even ones correlating to ones in the brain. I've just no idea what non-computational elements it might have that couldn't be substituted by computational ones or just peripheral components.
- tgflynn 4y ago
  > I've just no idea what non-computational elements it might have that couldn't be substituted by computational ones or just peripheral components. Neither does anyone else but the point is that once you accept that such "non-computational elements" might be or must be required you are no longer talking about computation alone being sufficient to produce consciousness.
  - simonh 4y ago
    Agreed, that seems clear, but I see no reason to accept that such elements are necessary, and I have yet to hear any clear explanation of what such elements might actually be. As far as I can tell it would have to be some physical process that affects the behaviour of a computational system, but isn't computational and it's effects on other systems cannot be simulated by computation. Does any such a phenomenon exist in all of physics? Not that I'm aware.
    - feet 4y ago
      A wire on its own is not computational, neither is an amino acid but they do make up computational systems. It seems like a bit of an arbitrary distinction
    - tgflynn 4y ago
      > As far as I can tell it would have to be some physical process that affects the behaviour of a computational system, but isn't computational and it's effects on other systems cannot be simulated by computation. I mean no physical process is strictly computational. Computations operate on abstract representations of physical things, not on those things themselves. We're back to why weather simulations don't rain on you and why simulations of nuclear explosions don't leave craters in Los Alamos.
      - simonh 4y ago
        Computation is a physical process though. To occur, it has to be performed in the physical world by a mechanism. I'm going to nitpick your terminology a bit I'm afraid. I don't see how an abstract representation can be operated on, surely to operate on a representation it has to be a physical representation, such as a physical state representing 0 or 1? I suppose the representation might be of an abstract object, data, but you can't actually operate on anything that's only abstract. It has to have a real representation.
        tgflynn 4y ago
        You seem to be having a lot of trouble grasping the concept of abstraction, which is absolutely fundamental to what we are talking about. Mathematics, logic and computer science study abstractions, they do not study physical things. The mathematical fact that 1 + 1 = 2 is true regardless of whether we are counting apples or oranges. On the other hand 5 + 5 = 30 pounds is mathematically a non-sensical statement, even though there are physical objects for which it is true (ie. objects which happen to weigh 3 pounds). Computation is not a physical process any more than addition is a physical process. It is true that to actually perform either a physical instantiation is necessary but in the same way that the results of addition do not depend on what we are adding the results of computation do not depend on what kind of physical process we use to perform the computation. This was the whole point of my earlier water based computer example. Would it be correct, on the basis of that example, to say that the program "makes you wet" or that some computations make you wet ? No, such a statement would be as non-sensical as the statement that 5 + 5 = 30 pounds. Now the key thing is that when people make claims about computers being conscious those claims are usually based on what some program does (ie. what its inputs and outputs are), in other words a computational property of the program that would be the same regardless of what kind of computer it was executed on. The guy who claimed that LaMDA was conscious wasn't basing his claim on something specific about the kind of hardware it was running on, he was basing it on the program's inputs and outputs, which are indeed a computational property and therefore abstract.

simonh 4y ago

Ok, so a computer with a water sprinkler attachment. Sorry, I'm not trying to be flippant, the point is any such system would be more than just a CPU, it would need interfaces with the outside world. It could have whatever peripheral systems you like. It could have quantum computational elements, even ones correlating to ones in the brain. I've just no idea what non-computational elements it might have that couldn't be substituted by computational ones or just peripheral components.

tgflynn 4y ago
> I've just no idea what non-computational elements it might have that couldn't be substituted by computational ones or just peripheral components. Neither does anyone else but the point is that once you accept that such "non-computational elements" might be or must be required you are no longer talking about computation alone being sufficient to produce consciousness.
- simonh 4y ago
  Agreed, that seems clear, but I see no reason to accept that such elements are necessary, and I have yet to hear any clear explanation of what such elements might actually be. As far as I can tell it would have to be some physical process that affects the behaviour of a computational system, but isn't computational and it's effects on other systems cannot be simulated by computation. Does any such a phenomenon exist in all of physics? Not that I'm aware.
  - feet 4y ago
    A wire on its own is not computational, neither is an amino acid but they do make up computational systems. It seems like a bit of an arbitrary distinction
  - tgflynn 4y ago
    > As far as I can tell it would have to be some physical process that affects the behaviour of a computational system, but isn't computational and it's effects on other systems cannot be simulated by computation. I mean no physical process is strictly computational. Computations operate on abstract representations of physical things, not on those things themselves. We're back to why weather simulations don't rain on you and why simulations of nuclear explosions don't leave craters in Los Alamos.
    - simonh 4y ago
      Computation is a physical process though. To occur, it has to be performed in the physical world by a mechanism. I'm going to nitpick your terminology a bit I'm afraid. I don't see how an abstract representation can be operated on, surely to operate on a representation it has to be a physical representation, such as a physical state representing 0 or 1? I suppose the representation might be of an abstract object, data, but you can't actually operate on anything that's only abstract. It has to have a real representation.
      - tgflynn 4y ago
        You seem to be having a lot of trouble grasping the concept of abstraction, which is absolutely fundamental to what we are talking about. Mathematics, logic and computer science study abstractions, they do not study physical things. The mathematical fact that 1 + 1 = 2 is true regardless of whether we are counting apples or oranges. On the other hand 5 + 5 = 30 pounds is mathematically a non-sensical statement, even though there are physical objects for which it is true (ie. objects which happen to weigh 3 pounds). Computation is not a physical process any more than addition is a physical process. It is true that to actually perform either a physical instantiation is necessary but in the same way that the results of addition do not depend on what we are adding the results of computation do not depend on what kind of physical process we use to perform the computation. This was the whole point of my earlier water based computer example. Would it be correct, on the basis of that example, to say that the program "makes you wet" or that some computations make you wet ? No, such a statement would be as non-sensical as the statement that 5 + 5 = 30 pounds. Now the key thing is that when people make claims about computers being conscious those claims are usually based on what some program does (ie. what its inputs and outputs are), in other words a computational property of the program that would be the same regardless of what kind of computer it was executed on. The guy who claimed that LaMDA was conscious wasn't basing his claim on something specific about the kind of hardware it was running on, he was basing it on the program's inputs and outputs, which are indeed a computational property and therefore abstract.