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The number of proponents and critics is not relevant.

• heavyset_go 4y ago
  Approaching this debate from first principles while ignoring the decades of thought and research that have gone into it doesn't lead to fruitful discussion. Acknowledging what prominent researchers, philosophers, experts, etc have thought and said about this does, however. For example, the definition of "compute" can vary greatly, which we can see here in the comments section versus what is usually considered computing when it comes to the computational theory of mind. Often regarding this topic, "computing" means symbol manipulation and representation a la Turing machines, whereas many in this comment section interpret "computing" as the action of taking input and producing output. My point with the comment is that I'm no expert, and I'm not someone who has really thought about or tried to tackle this problem. There are plenty of people who have, though, and they can make more insightful, apt and convincing arguments that are worth looking into before accepting or dismissing the concept entirely.