[customguy]

Who claimed it's because they're of fundamentally different substrate? And who is talking about computers? It's about algorithms. You could recreate an LLM with infinite humans and infinite time and infinite pens and pieces of paper surely, just like you can make a 16-bit computer in Minecraft, and it would not make that LLM more or less sentient.

That Descartes analogy is far off the mark, since we're not making guesses about something that existed before us, we are talking about something we made and are making. Just like you know there's no fairies moving clock hands because you know how a clock is made. I'd even say that some people get confused, or confuse others for money, is the only reason this is even discussed.