4 ms·

>Simulating something isn't the same thing as being that thing. That's a controversial, though probably majority position, among people who study consciousness

>Simulating something isn't the same thing as being that thing. That's a controversial, though probably majority position, among people who study consciousness. Functional equivalence in the minds of many hard-nosed, very important folks in the field *does* entail feature equivalence with respect to consciousness.

goatlover 2y ago
Problem is functional equivalence doesn't deal with the hard problem, since the hard problem isn't functional, it's a felt experiential matter. No degree of functional equivalence can tell us whether a system is experiencing something. It only tells us that it's functioning in an equivalent manner. Fundamentally, this is a dichotomy between objective and subjective. Functional is an objective measurement.
- mannykannot 2y ago
  > No degree of functional equivalence can tell us whether a system is experiencing something. What makes you sure of that? I have read all the usual arguments, and I don't find them sufficient to justify the certainty that it is beyond the realm of possibility of doing so, at least up to the standard of evidence by which we assume other people are experiencing something. Framing the physical-mental problem in terms of equivalence is essentially begging the question anyway, tacitly presupposing that the mental is not a physical phenomenon. No-one asks what, physically, is equivalent to a hurricane (to use just one example of a complex and what was once a mysterious phenomenon.)
- jhickok 2y ago
  That view of the hard problem begs the question against functionalist theories of consciousness though. Many physicalists deny that the hard-problem (or backing arguments like the zombie argument) entails that there is such a dichotomy.
mannykannot 2y ago
Why would these viewpoints be regarded as mutually exclusive? What's wrong with X and Y being functionally equivalent in every respect, yet different in implementation? See the last paragraph of my reply to goatlover for why I feel that identity is a red herring.
- jhickok 2y ago
  Well for the functionalist I am describing, their view is that identity *doesn't* matter, and that consciousness is multi-realizable by any appropriately arrange substrate. That's why my reply to OP's statement-- "simulating something isn't the same as being that thing" is wrong to a large group of people who work in this field, who claim that there is nothing more to being a thing than their functional arrangement, whether it's a brain or a neural network etc.
  - slowmovintarget 2y ago
    In the real world, identity tends to matter, especially for complex systems. Genetic algorithms, for example, given enough time, will optimize differently on different hardware, or even in a different environment. What's amazing is how resilient organic creatures are, humans in particular, to changes in "identity."
  - mannykannot 2y ago
    Indeed - substrate independence is behind my example of a computer simulation of a cryptographic machine. I chose to use the term 'the same' strictly, by which the simulation is not strictly the same as the machine (the substrate is different), yet in the ways that matter (i.e. functionally), they are the same. I find that putting it this way makes it less easy (or likely) to be summarily dismissed by people who feel that "a simulation is not the same as the thing it is simulating" is a decisive argument against the possibility of conscious computers.

goatlover 2y ago

Problem is functional equivalence doesn't deal with the hard problem, since the hard problem isn't functional, it's a felt experiential matter. No degree of functional equivalence can tell us whether a system is experiencing something. It only tells us that it's functioning in an equivalent manner. Fundamentally, this is a dichotomy between objective and subjective. Functional is an objective measurement.

mannykannot 2y ago
> No degree of functional equivalence can tell us whether a system is experiencing something. What makes you sure of that? I have read all the usual arguments, and I don't find them sufficient to justify the certainty that it is beyond the realm of possibility of doing so, at least up to the standard of evidence by which we assume other people are experiencing something. Framing the physical-mental problem in terms of equivalence is essentially begging the question anyway, tacitly presupposing that the mental is not a physical phenomenon. No-one asks what, physically, is equivalent to a hurricane (to use just one example of a complex and what was once a mysterious phenomenon.)
jhickok 2y ago
That view of the hard problem begs the question against functionalist theories of consciousness though. Many physicalists deny that the hard-problem (or backing arguments like the zombie argument) entails that there is such a dichotomy.

mannykannot 2y ago

Why would these viewpoints be regarded as mutually exclusive? What's wrong with X and Y being functionally equivalent in every respect, yet different in implementation? See the last paragraph of my reply to goatlover for why I feel that identity is a red herring.

jhickok 2y ago
Well for the functionalist I am describing, their view is that identity *doesn't* matter, and that consciousness is multi-realizable by any appropriately arrange substrate. That's why my reply to OP's statement-- "simulating something isn't the same as being that thing" is wrong to a large group of people who work in this field, who claim that there is nothing more to being a thing than their functional arrangement, whether it's a brain or a neural network etc.
- slowmovintarget 2y ago
  In the real world, identity tends to matter, especially for complex systems. Genetic algorithms, for example, given enough time, will optimize differently on different hardware, or even in a different environment. What's amazing is how resilient organic creatures are, humans in particular, to changes in "identity."
- mannykannot 2y ago
  Indeed - substrate independence is behind my example of a computer simulation of a cryptographic machine. I chose to use the term 'the same' strictly, by which the simulation is not strictly the same as the machine (the substrate is different), yet in the ways that matter (i.e. functionally), they are the same. I find that putting it this way makes it less easy (or likely) to be summarily dismissed by people who feel that "a simulation is not the same as the thing it is simulating" is a decisive argument against the possibility of conscious computers.