6 ms·

> Professor Searle concluded that psychological states could never be attributed to computer programs, and that it was wrong to compare the brain to hardware or

by kmoser 1y ago

> Professor Searle concluded that psychological states could never be attributed to computer programs, and that it was wrong to compare the brain to hardware or the mind to software. Gotta agree here. The brain is a chemical computer with a gazillion inputs that are stimulated in manifold ways by the world around it, and is constantly changing states while you are alive; a computer is a digital processor that works work with raw data, and tends to be entirely static when no processing is happening. The two are vastly different entities that are similar in only the most abstract ways.

levocardia 1y ago
Searle had an even stronger version of that belief, though: he believed that a full computational simulation of all of those gazillion inputs, being stimulated in all those manifold ways, would still not be conscious and not have a 'mind' in the human sense. The NYT obituary quotes him comparing a computer simulation of a building fire against the actual building going up in flames.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- block_dagger 1y ago
  When I read that analogy, I found it inept. Fire is a well defined physical process. Understanding / cognition is not necessarily physical and certainly not well defined.
  - voidhorse 1y ago
    But that acknowledgement would itself lend Searle's argument credence because much of the brain = computer thesis depends on a fundamental premise that both brains and digital computers realize computation under the same physical constraints; the "physical substrate" doesn't matter (and that there is necessarily nothing special about biophysical systems beyond computational or resource complexity) (the same thinking by the way, leads to arguments that an abacus and a computer are essentially "the same"—really at root these are all fallacies of unwarranted/extremist abstraction/reductionism) The history of the brain computer equation idea is fascinating and incredibly shaky. Basically a couple of cyberneticists posed a brain = computer analogy back in the 50s with wildly little justification and everyone just ran with it anyway and very few people (Searle is one of those few) have actually challenged it.
    - lo_zamoyski 1y ago
      > The history of the brain computer equation idea is fascinating and incredibly shaky. Basically a couple of cyberneticists posed a brain = computer analogy back in the 50s with wildly little justification and everyone just ran with it anyway and very few people (Searle is one of those few) have actually challenged it. And something that often happens whenever some phenomenon falls under scientific investigation, like mechanical force or hydraulics or electricity or quantum mechanics or whatever.
    - jacquesm 1y ago
      Roger Penrose would be another.
    - ozy 1y ago
      Maybe consciousness is exactly like simulated fire. It does a lot inside the simulation, but is nothing on the outside.
    - vidarh 1y ago
      Unless you can show an example of how we can compute something that is not Turing computable, there is no justification for the inverse, as the inverse would require something in the brain to be capable of interactions that can not be simulated. And we've no evidence to suggest either that the brain can do something not Turing computable or of the presence of something in the brain that can't be simulated.
  - freejazz 1y ago
    Isn't that besides the point? The point is that something would actually burn down.
    - anigbrowl 1y ago
      https://home.sandiego.edu/~baber/analytic/Lem1979.html https://home.sandiego.edu/~baber/analytic/Lem1979.html
    - wzdd 1y ago
      GP's point is that buring something down is by definition something that requires a specific physical process. It's not obvious that thinking is the same. So when someone says something like "just as a simulation of fire isn't the same as an actual fire (in a very important way!), a simulation of thinking isn't the same as actual thinking" they're arguing circularly, having already accepted their conclusion that both acts necessarily require a specific physical process. Daniel Dennett called this sort of argument an "intuition pump", which relies on a misleading but intuitive analogy to get you to accept an otherwise-difficult-to-prove conclusion. To be fair to Searle, I don't think he advanced this as an agument, but more of an illustration of his belief that thinking was indeed a physical process specific to brains.
      - measurablefunc 1y ago
        He explains it in the original paper¹ & says in no uncertain terms that he believes the brain is a machine & minds are implementable on machines. What he is actually arguing is that substrate independent digital computation will never be a sufficient explanation for conscious experience. He says that brains are proof that consciousness is physical & mechanical but not digital. Searle is not against the computationalist hypothesis of minds, he admits that there is nothing special about minds in terms of physical processes but he doesn't reduce everything to substrate independent digital computation & conclude that minds are just software running on brains. There are a bunch of subtle distinctions that people miss when they try to refute Searle's argument. ¹https://home.csulb.edu/~cwallis/382/readings/482/searle.minds.brains.programs.bbs.1980.pdf https://home.csulb.edu/~cwallis/382/readings/482/searle.mind...
  - visarga 1y ago
    Simulated fire would burn down simulated building
    - measurablefunc 1y ago
      If everything is simulated then "simulated(x)" is a vacuous predicate & tells you nothing so you might as well throw it away & speak directly in terms of the objects instead of wrapping/prepending everything w/ "simulated".
      - pwdisswordfishy 1y ago
        "Simulated" is not a predicate, but a modality.
  - lo_zamoyski 1y ago
    That's debatable, but it is also irrelevant, as the key to the argument here is that computation is by definition an abstract and strictly syntactic construct - one that has no objective reality vis-a-vis the physical devices we use to simulate computation and call "computers" - while semantics or intentionality are essential to human intelligence. And no amount of syntax can somehow magically transmute into semantics.
    - vidarh 1y ago
      This makes no sense. You could equally make the statement that thought is by definition an abstract and strictly syntactic construct - one that has no objective reality. Neither statement is supported by anything. There's also no "magic" involved in transmuting syntax into semantics, merely a subjective observer applying semantics to it.
      - lo_zamoyski 1y ago
        You claim it makes no sense, but don't give a good reason why it wouldn't. > You could equally make the statement that thought is by definition an abstract and strictly syntactic construct - one that has no objective reality. This is what makes no sense, as I am not merely posing arbitrary definitions, but identifying characteristic features of human intelligence. Do you deny semantics and intentionality are features of the human mind? > There's also no "magic" involved in transmuting syntax into semantics, merely a subjective observer applying semantics to it. I have no idea what this means. The point is that computation as we understand it in computer science is purely syntactic (this was also Searle's argument). Indeed, it is modeled on the mechanical operations human computers used to perform without understanding. This property is precisely what makes computation - thus understood - mechanizable. Because it is purely syntactic and an entirely abstract model, two things follow: 1. Computation is not an objectively real phenomenon that computers are performing. Rather, physical devices are used to simulate computation. Searle calls computation "observer relative". There is nothing special about electronics, as we can simulate computation using wooden gears that operate mechanically or water flow or whatever. But human intelligence is objectively real and exists concretely, and so it cannot be a matter of mere simulation or something merely abstract (it is incoherent and self-refuting to deny this for what should be obvious reasons). 2. Because intentionality and the capacity for semantics are features of human intelligence, and computation is purely syntactic, there is no room in computation for intelligence. It is an entirely wrong basis for understanding intelligence and in a categorical sense. It's like trying to find out what arrangement of LEGO bricks can produce the number π. Syntax has no "aboutness" as that is the province of intentionality and semantics. To deny this is to deny that human beings are intelligent, which would render the question of intelligence meaningless and frankly mystifying.
  - sgt101 1y ago
    >Understanding / cognition is not necessarily physical and certainly not well defined. Whooha! If it's not physical what is it? How does something that's not physical interact with the universe and how does the universe interact with it? Where does the energy come from and go? Why would that process not be a physical process like any other?
  - lxgr 1y ago
    I'd say understanding and cognition are at this point fully explainable mechanistically. (I am very excited to live in a time where I was able to change my mind on this!) Where we haven't made any headway on is on the connection between that and subjective experience/qualia. I feel like much of the (in my mind) strange conclusions of the Chinese Room are about that and not really about "pure" cognition.
  - netdevphoenix 1y ago
    Do you believe that there are things that are not physical? Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. And no, "science can't explain x hence metaphysical" is not a valid response.
cannonpr 1y ago
I think the statement above and yours both seem to ignore “Turing complete” systems, which would indicate that a computer is entirely capable of simulating the brain, perhaps not before the heat death of the universe, that’s yet to be proven and depends a lot on what the brain is really doing underneath in terms of crunching.
- voidhorse 1y ago
  This depends on the assumption that all brain activity is the process of realizing computable functions. I'm not really aware of any strong philosophical or neurological positions that has established this beyond dispute. Not to resurrect vitalism or something but we'd first need to establish that biological systems are reducible to strictly physical systems. Even so, I think there's some reason to think that the highly complex social historical process of human development might complicate things a bit more than just brute force "simulate enough neurons". Worse, whose brain exactly do you simulate? We are all different. How do we determine which minute differences in neural architecture matter?
  - lo_zamoyski 1y ago
    > we'd first need to establish that biological systems are reducible to strictly physical systems. Or even more fundamentally, that physics captures all physical phenomena, which it doesn't. The methods of physics intentionally ignore certain aspects of reality and focus on quantifiable and structural aspects while also drawing on layers of abstractions where it is easy to mistakenly attribute features of these abstractions to reality.
    - sgt101 1y ago
      >also drawing on layers of abstractions where it is easy to mistakenly attribute features of these abstractions to reality. Ok - I get that bit. I have always thought that physics is a description of the universe as observed and of course the description could be misleading in some way. >the methods of physics intentionally ignore certain aspects of reality and focus on quantifiable and structural aspects Can you share the aspects of reality that physics ignores? What parts of reality are unquantifiable and not structural?
DaveZale 1y ago
Yes. I took an introneuroscience course a few years ago. Even to understand what is happening in one neuron during one input from one dendrite requires differential equations. And there are postive and negative inputs and modulations... it is bewildering! And how many billions of neurons with hundreds of interactions with surrounding neurons? And bundles of them, many still unknown?
- throwaway78940 1y ago
  Searle was known for the Chinese Room experiment, whicb demonstrated language in its translational states to be strong enclitic feature of various judgements of the intermediary.
  - sgt101 1y ago
    >translational states to be strong enclitic feature of various judgements of the intermediary I don't understand, could you explain what you mean? I looked up enclitic - it seems to mean the shortening of a word by emphasizing another word, I can't understand why this would apply to the judgements of an intermediary
  - subjectivationx 1y ago
    Searle also has almost 20 books, most written after 1980 and the Chinese room. None that I have read are pop science NYT best seller types. I suspect that is why most people only know the Chinese room. His depth of thought was much more than the Chinese Room.
- p1esk 1y ago
  Do you need differential equations to understand what’s happening in a transistor?
anigbrowl 1y ago
a computer is a digital processor that works work with raw data, and tends to be entirely static when no processing is happening. This depends entirely on how it's configured. Right now we've chosen to set up LLMs as verbally acute Skinner boxes, but there's not reason you can't set up a computer system to be processing input or doing self-maintenance (ie sleep) all the time.
p1esk 1y ago
So you’re saying a brain is a computer, right?
- kmoser 1y ago
  In the sense that it can perform computations, yes. But the underlying mechanisms are vastly different from a modern digital computer, making them extremely different devices that are alike in only a vague sense.
  - sgt101 1y ago
    I have always wondered if we would be capable of writing down the mechanisms that power our thoughts. I think that this was one of the ideas that bubbled up from reading Godel Escher Bach many years ago. Is it possible for us to express the machine that makes us using the outputs of that machine in the way that it's not possible to write second order logic using first order logic. Of course, also there are processes that are not expressible as computations, but those of these that I know about seem very very distant from human thought, and it seems very very improbable that they could be implemented with a brain. I also think that these are not observed in our universe so far.
vidarh 1y ago
Unless human brains exceeds the Turing computable, they're still computationally equivalent, and we have no indication exceeding the Turing computable is even possible.
- kmoser 1y ago
  A Turing machine operates serially on a fixed set of instructions. A human brain operates in parallel on inputs that are constantly changing. The underlying mechanism is completely different. The human brain is far, far more than a mere computation device. Efforts to reproduce a human brain in a computer are currently at the level of a cargo cult: we're simulating the mechanical operations, without a deep understanding of the underlying processes which are just as important. I'm not saying we won't get better at it, but so far we're nowhere near producing a brain in a computer.
  - vidarh 1y ago
    Any Turing complete computational device is computationally equivalent to any other, irrespective of whether it carries out the computation serially or in parallel or on a fixed set of instructions or an infinite set. Unless you can demonstrate that the human brain can compute a function - any function - that exceeds the Turing computable, there is no evidence to even suggest it is possible for a brain not to be computationally equivalent to a computer.
    - kmoser 1y ago
      I'm not saying it's impossible. I'm saying it's highly improbable to ever come close to fruition, since if you want to be completely accurate in your computations, you'd have to model the physical effects of every single atom in the brain and how they affect each other, in realtime (physically, chemically, electrically, etc.). Not only would that be computationally expensive, but you'd also need to know the complete set of rules for doing so, which includes how things interact at the quantum level.
      - vidarh 1y ago
lxgr 1y ago
That's a quantitative distinction at most, since computationally both are equivalent (as both can simulate each other's basic components). And what's a few orders of magnitudes in implementation efficiency among philosophers?
tim333 1y ago
They have similar functions though. You can replace bits with cochlear implants and artificial retinas that take over some of the processing. I find the arguments that psychological states are real if the processing uses synapses to provide electrical signals but not if it uses transistors to provide electrical signals is lacking in evidence.

by kmoser 1y ago

levocardia 1y ago

Searle had an even stronger version of that belief, though: he believed that a full computational simulation of all of those gazillion inputs, being stimulated in all those manifold ways, would still not be conscious and not have a 'mind' in the human sense. The NYT obituary quotes him comparing a computer simulation of a building fire against the actual building going up in flames.

deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
block_dagger 1y ago
When I read that analogy, I found it inept. Fire is a well defined physical process. Understanding / cognition is not necessarily physical and certainly not well defined.
- voidhorse 1y ago
  But that acknowledgement would itself lend Searle's argument credence because much of the brain = computer thesis depends on a fundamental premise that both brains and digital computers realize computation under the same physical constraints; the "physical substrate" doesn't matter (and that there is necessarily nothing special about biophysical systems beyond computational or resource complexity) (the same thinking by the way, leads to arguments that an abacus and a computer are essentially "the same"—really at root these are all fallacies of unwarranted/extremist abstraction/reductionism) The history of the brain computer equation idea is fascinating and incredibly shaky. Basically a couple of cyberneticists posed a brain = computer analogy back in the 50s with wildly little justification and everyone just ran with it anyway and very few people (Searle is one of those few) have actually challenged it.
  - lo_zamoyski 1y ago
    > The history of the brain computer equation idea is fascinating and incredibly shaky. Basically a couple of cyberneticists posed a brain = computer analogy back in the 50s with wildly little justification and everyone just ran with it anyway and very few people (Searle is one of those few) have actually challenged it. And something that often happens whenever some phenomenon falls under scientific investigation, like mechanical force or hydraulics or electricity or quantum mechanics or whatever.
  - jacquesm 1y ago
    Roger Penrose would be another.
  - ozy 1y ago
    Maybe consciousness is exactly like simulated fire. It does a lot inside the simulation, but is nothing on the outside.
  - vidarh 1y ago
    Unless you can show an example of how we can compute something that is not Turing computable, there is no justification for the inverse, as the inverse would require something in the brain to be capable of interactions that can not be simulated. And we've no evidence to suggest either that the brain can do something not Turing computable or of the presence of something in the brain that can't be simulated.
- freejazz 1y ago
  Isn't that besides the point? The point is that something would actually burn down.
  - anigbrowl 1y ago
    https://home.sandiego.edu/~baber/analytic/Lem1979.html https://home.sandiego.edu/~baber/analytic/Lem1979.html
  - wzdd 1y ago
    GP's point is that buring something down is by definition something that requires a specific physical process. It's not obvious that thinking is the same. So when someone says something like "just as a simulation of fire isn't the same as an actual fire (in a very important way!), a simulation of thinking isn't the same as actual thinking" they're arguing circularly, having already accepted their conclusion that both acts necessarily require a specific physical process. Daniel Dennett called this sort of argument an "intuition pump", which relies on a misleading but intuitive analogy to get you to accept an otherwise-difficult-to-prove conclusion. To be fair to Searle, I don't think he advanced this as an agument, but more of an illustration of his belief that thinking was indeed a physical process specific to brains.
    - measurablefunc 1y ago
      He explains it in the original paper¹ & says in no uncertain terms that he believes the brain is a machine & minds are implementable on machines. What he is actually arguing is that substrate independent digital computation will never be a sufficient explanation for conscious experience. He says that brains are proof that consciousness is physical & mechanical but not digital. Searle is not against the computationalist hypothesis of minds, he admits that there is nothing special about minds in terms of physical processes but he doesn't reduce everything to substrate independent digital computation & conclude that minds are just software running on brains. There are a bunch of subtle distinctions that people miss when they try to refute Searle's argument. ¹https://home.csulb.edu/~cwallis/382/readings/482/searle.minds.brains.programs.bbs.1980.pdf https://home.csulb.edu/~cwallis/382/readings/482/searle.mind...
- visarga 1y ago
  Simulated fire would burn down simulated building
  - measurablefunc 1y ago
    If everything is simulated then "simulated(x)" is a vacuous predicate & tells you nothing so you might as well throw it away & speak directly in terms of the objects instead of wrapping/prepending everything w/ "simulated".
    - pwdisswordfishy 1y ago
      "Simulated" is not a predicate, but a modality.
- lo_zamoyski 1y ago
  That's debatable, but it is also irrelevant, as the key to the argument here is that computation is by definition an abstract and strictly syntactic construct - one that has no objective reality vis-a-vis the physical devices we use to simulate computation and call "computers" - while semantics or intentionality are essential to human intelligence. And no amount of syntax can somehow magically transmute into semantics.
  - vidarh 1y ago
    This makes no sense. You could equally make the statement that thought is by definition an abstract and strictly syntactic construct - one that has no objective reality. Neither statement is supported by anything. There's also no "magic" involved in transmuting syntax into semantics, merely a subjective observer applying semantics to it.
    - lo_zamoyski 1y ago
      You claim it makes no sense, but don't give a good reason why it wouldn't. > You could equally make the statement that thought is by definition an abstract and strictly syntactic construct - one that has no objective reality. This is what makes no sense, as I am not merely posing arbitrary definitions, but identifying characteristic features of human intelligence. Do you deny semantics and intentionality are features of the human mind? > There's also no "magic" involved in transmuting syntax into semantics, merely a subjective observer applying semantics to it. I have no idea what this means. The point is that computation as we understand it in computer science is purely syntactic (this was also Searle's argument). Indeed, it is modeled on the mechanical operations human computers used to perform without understanding. This property is precisely what makes computation - thus understood - mechanizable. Because it is purely syntactic and an entirely abstract model, two things follow: 1. Computation is not an objectively real phenomenon that computers are performing. Rather, physical devices are used to simulate computation. Searle calls computation "observer relative". There is nothing special about electronics, as we can simulate computation using wooden gears that operate mechanically or water flow or whatever. But human intelligence is objectively real and exists concretely, and so it cannot be a matter of mere simulation or something merely abstract (it is incoherent and self-refuting to deny this for what should be obvious reasons). 2. Because intentionality and the capacity for semantics are features of human intelligence, and computation is purely syntactic, there is no room in computation for intelligence. It is an entirely wrong basis for understanding intelligence and in a categorical sense. It's like trying to find out what arrangement of LEGO bricks can produce the number π. Syntax has no "aboutness" as that is the province of intentionality and semantics. To deny this is to deny that human beings are intelligent, which would render the question of intelligence meaningless and frankly mystifying.
- sgt101 1y ago
  >Understanding / cognition is not necessarily physical and certainly not well defined. Whooha! If it's not physical what is it? How does something that's not physical interact with the universe and how does the universe interact with it? Where does the energy come from and go? Why would that process not be a physical process like any other?
- lxgr 1y ago
  I'd say understanding and cognition are at this point fully explainable mechanistically. (I am very excited to live in a time where I was able to change my mind on this!) Where we haven't made any headway on is on the connection between that and subjective experience/qualia. I feel like much of the (in my mind) strange conclusions of the Chinese Room are about that and not really about "pure" cognition.
- netdevphoenix 1y ago
  Do you believe that there are things that are not physical? Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. And no, "science can't explain x hence metaphysical" is not a valid response.

cannonpr 1y ago

I think the statement above and yours both seem to ignore “Turing complete” systems, which would indicate that a computer is entirely capable of simulating the brain, perhaps not before the heat death of the universe, that’s yet to be proven and depends a lot on what the brain is really doing underneath in terms of crunching.

voidhorse 1y ago
This depends on the assumption that all brain activity is the process of realizing computable functions. I'm not really aware of any strong philosophical or neurological positions that has established this beyond dispute. Not to resurrect vitalism or something but we'd first need to establish that biological systems are reducible to strictly physical systems. Even so, I think there's some reason to think that the highly complex social historical process of human development might complicate things a bit more than just brute force "simulate enough neurons". Worse, whose brain exactly do you simulate? We are all different. How do we determine which minute differences in neural architecture matter?
- lo_zamoyski 1y ago
  > we'd first need to establish that biological systems are reducible to strictly physical systems. Or even more fundamentally, that physics captures all physical phenomena, which it doesn't. The methods of physics intentionally ignore certain aspects of reality and focus on quantifiable and structural aspects while also drawing on layers of abstractions where it is easy to mistakenly attribute features of these abstractions to reality.
  - sgt101 1y ago
    >also drawing on layers of abstractions where it is easy to mistakenly attribute features of these abstractions to reality. Ok - I get that bit. I have always thought that physics is a description of the universe as observed and of course the description could be misleading in some way. >the methods of physics intentionally ignore certain aspects of reality and focus on quantifiable and structural aspects Can you share the aspects of reality that physics ignores? What parts of reality are unquantifiable and not structural?

DaveZale 1y ago

Yes. I took an introneuroscience course a few years ago. Even to understand what is happening in one neuron during one input from one dendrite requires differential equations. And there are postive and negative inputs and modulations... it is bewildering! And how many billions of neurons with hundreds of interactions with surrounding neurons? And bundles of them, many still unknown?

throwaway78940 1y ago
Searle was known for the Chinese Room experiment, whicb demonstrated language in its translational states to be strong enclitic feature of various judgements of the intermediary.
- sgt101 1y ago
  >translational states to be strong enclitic feature of various judgements of the intermediary I don't understand, could you explain what you mean? I looked up enclitic - it seems to mean the shortening of a word by emphasizing another word, I can't understand why this would apply to the judgements of an intermediary
- subjectivationx 1y ago
  Searle also has almost 20 books, most written after 1980 and the Chinese room. None that I have read are pop science NYT best seller types. I suspect that is why most people only know the Chinese room. His depth of thought was much more than the Chinese Room.
p1esk 1y ago
Do you need differential equations to understand what’s happening in a transistor?

anigbrowl 1y ago

a computer is a digital processor that works work with raw data, and tends to be entirely static when no processing is happening. This depends entirely on how it's configured. Right now we've chosen to set up LLMs as verbally acute Skinner boxes, but there's not reason you can't set up a computer system to be processing input or doing self-maintenance (ie sleep) all the time.

p1esk 1y ago

So you’re saying a brain is a computer, right?

kmoser 1y ago
In the sense that it can perform computations, yes. But the underlying mechanisms are vastly different from a modern digital computer, making them extremely different devices that are alike in only a vague sense.
- sgt101 1y ago
  I have always wondered if we would be capable of writing down the mechanisms that power our thoughts. I think that this was one of the ideas that bubbled up from reading Godel Escher Bach many years ago. Is it possible for us to express the machine that makes us using the outputs of that machine in the way that it's not possible to write second order logic using first order logic. Of course, also there are processes that are not expressible as computations, but those of these that I know about seem very very distant from human thought, and it seems very very improbable that they could be implemented with a brain. I also think that these are not observed in our universe so far.

vidarh 1y ago

Unless human brains exceeds the Turing computable, they're still computationally equivalent, and we have no indication exceeding the Turing computable is even possible.

kmoser 1y ago
A Turing machine operates serially on a fixed set of instructions. A human brain operates in parallel on inputs that are constantly changing. The underlying mechanism is completely different. The human brain is far, far more than a mere computation device. Efforts to reproduce a human brain in a computer are currently at the level of a cargo cult: we're simulating the mechanical operations, without a deep understanding of the underlying processes which are just as important. I'm not saying we won't get better at it, but so far we're nowhere near producing a brain in a computer.
- vidarh 1y ago
  Any Turing complete computational device is computationally equivalent to any other, irrespective of whether it carries out the computation serially or in parallel or on a fixed set of instructions or an infinite set. Unless you can demonstrate that the human brain can compute a function - any function - that exceeds the Turing computable, there is no evidence to even suggest it is possible for a brain not to be computationally equivalent to a computer.
  - kmoser 1y ago
    I'm not saying it's impossible. I'm saying it's highly improbable to ever come close to fruition, since if you want to be completely accurate in your computations, you'd have to model the physical effects of every single atom in the brain and how they affect each other, in realtime (physically, chemically, electrically, etc.). Not only would that be computationally expensive, but you'd also need to know the complete set of rules for doing so, which includes how things interact at the quantum level.
    - vidarh 1y ago

lxgr 1y ago

That's a quantitative distinction at most, since computationally both are equivalent (as both can simulate each other's basic components). And what's a few orders of magnitudes in implementation efficiency among philosophers?

tim333 1y ago

They have similar functions though. You can replace bits with cochlear implants and artificial retinas that take over some of the processing. I find the arguments that psychological states are real if the processing uses synapses to provide electrical signals but not if it uses transistors to provide electrical signals is lacking in evidence.