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brandonmenc

> it is computation

OK, but what is "computation"?

If you perform the computation with a lot of pencils and a lot of paper, is it conscious?

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This is basically the Chinese Room argument and the answer is: yes, the system as a whole is conscious.

That's one answer. Another is that you would be within your rights to draw the inference that the system you are observing is conscious (which is slightly different, and deeply unsatisfying to many).

Can you explain the difference?

For Turing, the criteria for intelligence was a matter of observers (if it walks like a duck . . .); what is "actually happening" inside is irrelevant. Searle's objection was that what is happening "inside" is surely not irrelevant. So while some answered that in the Chinese Room argument the "whole system is conscious," others argued that Turing's point still stands. Someone observing the system would have to conclude that the system was intelligent, regardless of what was happening inside.

The two answers are roughly on the same side of the argument, but subtly different in important ways.

Ok thanks. Yeah I think that Turing came up with the best solution for detecting intelligence. If it passes that test then either the system is truly intelligent or a “zombie” which only appears intelligent. As mentioned in some other replies on this post, I think “zombies” are something created by philosophers but do not exist in real life. So i think the observation of intelligence is equivalent to actual intelligence.

The Chinese Room argument is tendentious because scaling a Chinese Room metaphor to a human brain's neurons and connections is hard to imagine. It is still hard-ish to imagine because, currently, it would take a large data center and 4-6 orders of magnitude the power consumption.

The other side of the coin is that we are asked to believe that what happens in an animal brain turns into magic when the animal is human. That is even harder to imagine.

> The other side of the coin is that we are asked to believe that what happens in an animal brain turns into magic when the animal is human. That is even harder to imagine.

Nobody is saying that animals aren't conscious. Or maybe a few are, and maybe human brains have some unique properties, we can't tell since we don't know what we are looking for. But animals display many of the same things as humans, and we know for a fact that humans are conscious so it isn't a stretch to imagine animals being as well.

> magic

Yes, we have no formula to describe consciousness, so as far as we know today it is magic. But if we manage to properly map that out in the future then consciousness will be science.

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