"When is a simulation the same as the thing being simulated?" I wrote a detailed analysis of this question in 2005 at http://thinkinghard.com/blog/WhenIsASimula

"When is a simulation the same as the thing being simulated?" I wrote a detailed analysis of this question in 2005 at http://thinkinghard.com/blog/WhenIsASimulation.html http://thinkinghard.com/blog/WhenIsASimulation.html. My article is a refutation of John Searle's argument that a mechanical simulation of a person who "understands" Chinese is not itself a thing that "understands" Chinese, i.e. a simulation of "understanding" Chinese is distinct from actually understanding Chinese. Panu is repeating John Searle's argument, but replacing "understand Chinese" with "feel pain". And the answer I found to my question is: a simulation is the same as the thing being simulated _if_ the thing being simulated is an information processing system. For example, a simulation of a washing machine is not a washing machine. But, a simulation of a calculator _is_ a calculator. A realistic simulation of a calculator would look just like one of those calculator programs you have on your computer or your mobile phone. And those programs actually _are_ calculators - because we use them to do calculations for us just like we used to use real calculators to do calculations for us. The question of whether simulated pain is the same as actual pain is equivalent to the question of whether pain is an aspect of an information processing system (which I think it is), or whether it is something else. An information processing system that "feels pain", will be less and less inclined to do something that is "painful". This will be part of the decision making process of that system. If the system is somehow able to "ignore" its own painful feelings, it will end up making bad decisions - just like a person who can't feel pain ends up making bad decisions. Typically people who don't feel pain suffer accumulated injuries and generally fail to look after themselves, even when they intellectually know that their insensitivity to pain puts them at risk, and as a result they become disabled and die at a younger age than those of us who suffer pain in the normal manner.