[andy99]

I've read a (untestable) theory that consciousness is a property of matter, so everything has it, and we're just sort of the sum of the desires and feelings of our constituent matter.

In that construct, a computer program would never be conscious because it's a simulation, it doesn't have the constituent consciousness property.

I don't believe or not believe the consciousness-as-a-property-of-matter part but I do think programs can't be conscious because consciousness must sit outside of what they simulate.

[xeonmc]

How about simulation programs that are impure, i.e. those which include I/O in its loop? After all, taking the Turing-completeness analogy further, while a machine that satisfies said criterion is capable of universal computation, actually performing a computation still requires an external input specified outside of the program itself. Perhaps it might turn out that stimuli residing outside of the simulated system is a necessary condition for non-incompleteness of consciousness, as a seed of relative non-determinism with respect to the program’s internal specification?

[JadeNB]

> In that construct, a computer program would never be conscious because it's a simulation, it doesn't have the constituent consciousness property.

A computer program is the result of electrical and mechanical interactions that manifest in macroscopically observable effects. So are we. Why, if all matter is conscious, should the one count but not the other?

[koolala]

Computers are made of matter. The Earth would be conscious too? A consciousness could contain consciousnessess.

[hhh]

why would it not be conscious in that construct? the bits exist physically just the same

[bee_rider]

The matter would have consciousness, but I guess the simulation would be of a different consciousness, made of processing.

Although, our brains also are doing computation, and also seem to have consciousness. Are they linked? Why/why not…

This is animism, right? It is a religious belief. Not really subject to testing.

[andy99]

I am conscious, I can act as a nand gate. If you set up a billion people and had them act as a computer (was that in 3 Body Problem?) it would not be conscious of what it was doing.