[adwn]

No, there is at least one other option, which is that consciousness [1] is a phenomenon that we can't replicate in non-biological brains [2], but from which the existence of a "God"-like being, as the term is understood by major religions, still doesn't follow.

[1] Or "qualia", to be precise.

[2] For example, the existence of qualia might require certain carbon-based structures which aren't present in silicon-based devices.

[cortic]

There is nothing that we know of in carbon based structures that violates universal causality, even in quantum scales where causality becomes more vague it is replaced by a measurable randomness.

So there should be no reason we cannot reduce these phenomena to actual quantifiable and there for Computable elements.

[funimpoded]

Computing something isn’t the same thing as it actually happening.

[cortic]

Its exactly the same, the universe is functionally a computing device, it is based on data and causality. Its complex but our brains do not work deeper than the neuron and so can be modeled in other computing devices like it is modeled in the computing device that is the universe.

[morpheos137]

That is a dubious asertion. At high enough resolution the model converges on the modeled.

[funimpoded]

"Resolution" has nothing whatsoever to do with it.

No amount of scribbling graphite onto paper will produce a butterfly.

[pixl97]

[citation needed]

[funimpoded]

\s?

[Eisenstein]

Would you say that displaying image of something on a screen qualifies as actually happening? Writing data on a storage medium? What about a roomba vacuuming a floor?

[funimpoded]

> Would you say that displaying image of something on a screen qualifies as actually happening?

Yeah, of course.

What I'm addressing is "if we turn 100% of everything about neurons into numbers we can do calculations on those numbers and it's the same as that stuff actually happening with real neurons". Which is entirely wrong. A trajectory calculation isn't different from actually firing a projectile because it's not precise enough but because it's something else entirely.

[Eisenstein]

So are saying that if we made a computer out of neurons that it could be capable of consciousness whereas an electronic one could not?

[funimpoded]

Yes, brains apparently can do consciousness.

Can descriptions of brains do consciousness? I don't know why we'd expect that they could. You can describe a fire in all the detail you like, and burn nothing.

Can electronic brains be conscious? I dunno. If I had to guess? Sky's-the-limit ignore-all-physical-and-temporal-constraints? Probably. Within the bounds of what humans will ever achieve? Maybe. I doubt they'd look as little-removed from tabulation machines as ours are, though. Like I definitely don't think you get there solving math problems. That would be surprisingly metaphysical.

[adwn]

> […] that violates universal causality

I think you're conflating qualia with free will. These are very different concepts, and the experience of qualia has nothing at all to do with "violating causality".

> So there should be no reason we cannot reduce these phenomena to actual quantifiable and there for Computable elements.

As long as we have practically no idea how qualia arise, or even what exactly they are, your claim has no base to stand on.

[cortic]

>As long as we have practically no idea how qualia arise

Qualia or the feeling of consciousness arises from our evolved instinct and ability to personify other humans; turned inward. There is a great amount of evidence to support this from neurological to psychological research.

But even if we didn't know how this came about in the brain, deduction demands it must come about through causal means, which itself is computable and so could be represented in other mediums.

[taneq]

Qualia are a begged question from the start, imo.

[binary132]

Did typing this sentence feel funny?

[taneq]

How would I tell? ;)

[dboreham]

Basically the Chinese Room argument. By now clear wrong.

[chongli]

How do you figure that? The Chinese Room has had many replies but no clear refutation.

[GoblinSlayer]

That's because Chinese Room is an assumption, not an argument.

[chongli]

Completely wrong. Please read up on the argument and the debate around it before continuing [1].

[1] https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/chinese-room/