And I am saying they are confused because they are attributing personal characteristics to computers and software. By spelling out what computers are doing it becomes very obvious that there is nothing that can be aware of any experiences in computers as it is all simply a sequence of arithmetic operations. If you can explain which sequence of arithmetic operations corresponds to "experiences" in computers then you might be less confused than all the people who keep claiming computers can think and feel.
> By spelling out what computers are doing it becomes very obvious that there is nothing that can be aware of any experiences in computers as it is all simply a sequence of arithmetic operations.
By spelling out what brains are doing it becomes very obvious that it's all simply a sequence of chemical reactions - and yet here we are, having experiences. Software will never have a human experience - but neither will a chimp, or an octopus, or a Zeta-Reticulan.
Mammalian neurons are not the only possible substrate for intelligence; if they're the only possible substrate for consciousness, then the fact that we're conscious is an inexplicable miracle.
If an algorithmic process is an experience and a collection of experiences is intelligence then we get some pretty wild conclusions that I don't think most people would be attempting to claim as it'd make them sound like a lunatic (or a hippy).
Consider the (algorithmic) mechanical process of screwing in a screw into a board. This screw has an "experience" and therefore intelligence. So... The screw is intelligent? Very low intelligence, but intelligent according to this definition.
But we have an even bigger problem. There's the metaset of experiences, that's the collection of several screws (or the screw, board, and screwdriver together). So we now have a meta intelligence! And we have several because there's the different operations on these sets to perform.
You might be okay with this or maybe you're saying it needs memory. If the later you hopefully quickly realize this means a classic computer is intelligent but due to the many ways information can be stored it does not solve our above conundrum.
So we must then come to the conclusion that all things AND any set of things have intelligence. Which kinda makes the whole discussion meaningless. Or, we must need a more refined definition of intelligence which more closely reflects what people actually are trying to convey when they use this word.
> If an algorithmic process is an experience and a collection of experiences is intelligence
Neither, what I'm saying is that the observable correlates of experience are the observable correlates of intelligence - saying that "humans are X therefore humans are Y, software is X but software is not Y" is special pleading. The most defensible positions here are illusionism about consciousness altogether (humans aren't Y) or a sort of soft panpsychism (X really does imply Y). Personally I favor the latter. Some sort of threshold model where the lights turn on at a certain point seems pretty sketchy to me, but I guess isn't ruled out. But GP, as I understand them, is claiming that biology doesn't even supervene on physics, which is a wild claim.
> Or, we must need a more refined definition of intelligence which more closely reflects what people actually are trying to convey when they use this word.
Well that's the thing, I don't think people are trying to convey any particular thing. I think they're trying to find some line - any line - which allows them to write off non-animal complex systems as philsophically uninteresting. Same deal as people a hundred years ago trying to find a way to strictly separate humans from nonhuman animals.
Continuing this reductio ad abusrdum, you might reach the fallactious conclusion, as some famous cranks in the past did, that intelligence is even found in plants, animals, women, and even the uncivilized savages of the new continent.
Intelligence appears in gradients, not a simple binary.
This is a common retort. You can read my other comments if you want to understand why you're not really addressing my points because I have already addressed how reductionism does not apply to living organisms but it does apply to computers.
The comments where you demand an instruction set for the brain, or else you'll dismiss any argument saying its actions can be computed? Even after people explained that lots of computers don't even have instruction sets?
And where you decide to assume that non-computable physics happens in the brain based on no evidence?
What a waste of time. You "addressed" it in a completely meaningless way.