| > You're using circular logic. You are assuming all physical processes are computational and then concluding that the brain is a computer even though that's exactly what you assumed to begin with. No, I never assumed “all physical processes are computational”. I never said that in my comment and nothing I said in my comment relies on such an assumption. What I’m claiming is (1) we lack consensus on what “intentionality” is (2) we lack consensus on how we can determine whether something has it. Neither claim depends on any assumptions about “physical processes are computational” If one assumes materialism/physicalism - and I personally don’t, but given most people do, I’ll assume it for the sake of the argument - intentionality must ultimately be physical. But I never said it must ultimately be computational. Computers are also (assuming physicalism) ultimately physical, so if both human brains and computers are ultimately physical, if the former have (ultimately physical) intentionality - why can’t the latter? That argument hinges on the idea both brains and computers are ultimately physical, not on any claim that the physical is computational. Suppose, hypothetically, that intentionality while ultimately physical, involves some extra-special quantum mechanical process - as suggested by Penrose and Hameroff’s extremely controversial and speculative “orchestrated objective reduction” theory [0]. Well, in that case, a program/LLM running on a classical computer couldn’t have intentionality, but maybe one running on a quantum computer could, depending on exactly how this “extra-special quantum mechanical process” works. Maybe, a standard quantum computer would lack the “extra-special” part, but one could design a special kind of quantum computer that did have it. But, my point is, we don’t actually know whether that theory is true or false. I think the majority of expert opinion in relevant disciplines doubts it is true, but nobody claims to be able to disprove it. In its current form, it is too vague to be disproven. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orchestrated_objective_reduc... |
You seem to be saying that because we have no clear cut way of determining whether people have intentions then that means, by physical reductionism, algorithms could also have intentions. The limiting case of this kind of semantic hair splitting is that I can say this about anything. There is no way to determine if something is dead or alive, there is no definition that works in all cases and no test to determine whether something is truly dead or alive so it must be the case that algorithms might or might not be alive but because we can't tell then me might as well assume there will be a way to make algorithms that are alive.
It's possible to reach any nonsensical conclusion using your logic because I can always ask for a more stringent definition and a way to test whether some object or attribute satisfies all the requirements.
I don't know anything about theories of consciousness but that's another example of something which does not have an algorithmic implementation unless one uses circular logic and assumes that the brain is a computer and consciousness is just software.