[Grumpy34]

> This means that one of these observers will, by chance, happen to observe that the states of the atoms correspond exactly to the bits of a Turing machine computing

I did not understand this argument. Yes, through careful labeling you can map the states of the atoms of the iron rod to the state of a Turing machine. But that mapping will only be correct for one instance. The very next moment the atoms' magnetic moment will flip randomly and the mapping will be lost. So an iron rod cannot be thought of as a computer.

[cmdli]

Allow me (not the author) to rephrase the argument. Lets say you have a computer that you would say is conscious. It does some computation, has some output, and you conclude that it is conscious in that moment, lets say for 1 second. Therefore, you assume that the computation (i.e. internal states and outputs) done by that computer for that 1 second creates consciousness.

Extending the iron bar argument, you could have 1 second of varying internal state by the iron bar, and then create many different interpretations that interpret that internal state in many different ways. One of those interpretations will show that the iron bar transitioned through the exact same internal states as the conscious computation, and did so in a deterministic, casually linked way. What then is the different between that iron bar and the conscious computer?