If not, then what makes the processor(s) in Data, Eva or any potential computer different from pencil and paper? — Marchesk

Pencil and paper can't get you a cup of "Earl Grey Tea, Hot!" or play Chopin, or win against you in a Chess match, et cetera. Pencil and paper can't even read itself.

All universal computers are equivalent. What you need to argue is that a billion Chinese human computers, cranking out an algorithm, constitutes a computationally universal system which is realisable.

Why not just program qualia on your laptop?

Irrelevant cultural side note: Why do we assign these mind numbing tasks to a billion Chinese? Do we suppose they have nothing better to do with their time. Why not a billion Africans? A billion Europeans and North Americans? Isn't it enough that they have to make all this junk we buy, without having to do all this calculation on top of everything else?

Paper and pencil, or printed code, isn't enough. A human being can read instructions for performance -- Swan Lake or making a cake -- but reading the instructions does nothing, Until the individual executes the instructions -- dances or breaks eggs, nothing happens.

I don't quite understand how human beings performing computer code would result in an experience.

LtCdr Data has to execute instructions of some kind to notice what is going on around him. So do we. We are much less aware of our instruction set, until we try to do something new and difficult. Then we have to step our way through the instructions. A computers memory contains instructions, but they have to be executed for the computer to "experience" anything.

I don't believe that it has anything to do with algorithms. So that's the first place that that idea is going off the tracks. What makes experiences of color etc. obtain is that those are properties of matter/structure/process complexes. You need the right sort of matter, in the right structures, undergoing the right processes, or you don't have the properties in question. Algorithms as a set of marks on a piece of paper, pencils, etc. aren't the right kind of matter/structures/processes for the properties in question to obtain.

Whether materials other than those that comprise brains can exihibit the properties in question is a good question, one that we have no idea of the answer to at the moment.

Well, a paper computer executes instructions just as a microprocessor computer does. So what is true of the one ought to be true of the other.

To be clear, Marchesk is not talking about a set of instructions once committed to paper and just sitting there. He is talking about a person or lots of people performing those instructions with pencil and paper instead of silicone and electric potentials.

P.S. The OP question is, of course, a variant of the Chinese Room problem.

If I'm understanding you correctly, you're surmising that the way that an algorithm is implemented matters to the outcome, as well as the abstract nature of the algorithm itself.

If so, I agree wholeheartedly.

Also, I'm delighted that you used pencil and paper, which I think is still the greatest technological innovation that our species has accomplished.

Also, I'm delighted that you used pencil and paper, which I think is still the greatest technological innovation that our species has accomplished. — andrewk

Interesting. Why that one in your opinion over fire, clothing, or the printing press?

The OP question is, of course, a variant of the Chinese Room problem. — SophistiCat

It is except the focus is own conscious experience and not understanding. Arguably, a fair amount of progress has been made in computer understanding with machine translation, image recognition, search algorithms, etc. But no progress whatsoever, far as anyone can tell, has been made on experience.

All universal computers are equivalent. What you need to argue is that a billion Chinese human computers, cranking out an algorithm, constitutes a computationally universal system which is realisable. — tom

Humans were computers before electronic computers existed. Is there a reason why enough humans given enough time can't compute any algorithm? How is that different from a turing machine with infinite tape?

Why not just program qualia on your laptop? — tom

Does anyone have any idea what sort of algorithm that would be? The point is to ask what it is about algorithms which could lead to experience.

You can take this as a criticism either against the computational theory of mind, or a criticism against universal computation (the substrate doesn't matter).

Irrelevant cultural side note: Why do we assign these mind numbing tasks to a billion Chinese? Do we suppose they have nothing better to do with their time. Why not a billion Africans? A billion Europeans and North Americans? Isn't it enough that they have to make all this junk we buy, without having to do all this calculation on top of everything else? — Bitter Crank

Because racism. Only a Chinese substrate will realize a true Turing machine. God is Chinese, and Searles messed up by having the room output Chinese, otherwise he had a solid argument. Silly Searle.

But really, probably because China is known for having more than a billion people. India would have worked. Africa is just too general. I don't even know how many people live on the continent, and I'm pretty sure there aren't 1 billion Europeans.

Why 1 billion? Because it's nice big number, but not too big for there to be that many people. So now you know!

I don't even know how many people live on the continent. — Marchesk

1.216 billion. See, they could do it too.

1.216 billion. See, they could do it too. — mcdoodle

I was imprecise. Most experts agree that 1.378 billion humans is needed to implement a universal Turing machine.

A lot less Datas would be needed, though. Only about 575 Datas could emulate their dreams on paper.

hat makes experiences of color etc. obtain is that those are properties of matter/structure/process complexes. You need the right sort of matter, in the right structures, undergoing the right processes, or you don't have the properties in question. — Terrapin Station

So you subscribe to an identity theory of mind. The physical substrate is necessary for conscious experience. Has to be squishy meat.

Pencil and paper can't get you a cup of "Earl Grey Tea, Hot!" or play Chopin, or win against you in a Chess match, et cetera. Pencil and paper can't even read itself. — Nils Loc

Ture, but then neither can software. You have to have peripheral devices hooked up to your computer to do all that.

Humans were computers before electronic computers existed. Is there a reason why enough humans given enough time can't compute any algorithm? How is that different from a turing machine with infinite tape? — Marchesk

There are a great many practical difficulties in encouraging 1 billion people to cooperate in cranking out an algorithm. What makes you think 1 billion is enough?

Much easier to use a laptop, surely!

Does anyone have any idea what sort of algorithm that would be? The point is to ask what it is about algorithms which could lead to experience. — Marchesk

No. It is a pressing philosophical problem.

You can take this as a criticism either against the computational theory of mind, or a criticism against universal computation (the substrate doesn't matter). — Marchesk

Denial of known physics is always an option, particularly when there are no consequences that matter.

Because racism. Only a Chinese substrate will realize a true Turing machine. God is Chinese, and Searles messed up by having the room output Chinese, otherwise he had a solid argument. Silly Searle. — Marchesk

Or it could be because of a very famous thought-experiment.

Denial of known physics is always an option, particularly when there are no consequences that matter. — tom

I'm not aware that physics requires universal computation to be the case, only that some have asserted that all physical processes can be computed. Sounds like an ontological claim to me, but maybe there is a mathematical proof for this?

Even if so, the big challenge would be to show that everything about the living brain is reducible to physics.

I'm not aware that physics requires universal computation to be the case, only that some have asserted that all physical processes can be computed. Sounds like an ontological claim to me, but maybe there is a mathematical proof for this? — Marchesk

There exists a proof.

Even if so, the big challenge would be to show that everything about the living brain is reducible to physics. — Marchesk

No! What is required is to demonstrate that any finite physical system can be simulated to arbitrary accuracy by finite means on a universal computer.

You think the brain has some non-physical aspect to it?

You think the brain has some non-physical aspect to it? — tom

I don't know whether non-reductionism is the case or not. Some physicalists ascribe to emergentism at different levels. I'm also not sure whether physicalism is the case. Maybe someone will figure out how to give a physical explanation for consciousness, but maybe not.

In addition to that, I'm skeptical that functionalism is entirely substrate independent. I kind of think that the sort of bodies we have determines the kind of minds we have.

Yes, I wondered about Fire, and the wheel (there's also Sliced Bread, as in 'the best thing since...'). Really by pencil and paper I mean writing, by whatever form, and I suppose the printing press is a later evolution of that. I suppose clay tablets with cuneiform inscriptions from a stylus may be the first ones do you think?

I'm happy to give ground to anybody that thinks Fire is more important (or maybe even spoken language - although I wonder whether some might class that as an evolved ability rather than an invention). I just love writing and drawing on paper with pencils, is all. :D

An experience is a biological phenomena: the identification of something, not an expression of it (eg with pen and paper).

An experience is a biological phenomena: the identification of something, not an expression of it (eg with pen and paper). — jkop

If we consider some of the claims by transhumanists or AI enthusiasts, then the right sort of computation will result in experience.

Consider the idea of mind uploading. If you could emulate your brain in software, would it have experiences? If so, then would the paper equivalent?

What is it about computation, or translations from some sets of symbols to other sets of symbols, that could produce a state of conscious awareness? I don't get it. Far more convincing is the idea of conscious awareness being, like photosynthesis, a biological phenomenon.

What is it about computation, or translations from some sets of symbols to other sets of symbols, that could produce a state of conscious awareness? — jkop

I don't know, but quite a few people think the mind is computable, and don't like the idea of some important mental aspect being unique to human physiology.

It is except the focus is own conscious experience and not understanding. Arguably, a fair amount of progress has been made in computer understanding with machine translation, image recognition, search algorithms, etc. But no progress whatsoever, far as anyone can tell, has been made on experience. — Marchesk

But what motivated the Chinese Room and similar thought experiments is the very idea that without conscious experience there is not "true" understanding. All along, it wasn't technical competence of the AI that was at issue.

Of course, what constitutes "true" understanding, as well as "true" conscious experience, is anyone's guess. I don't think there is a metaphysical truth of the matter here, because we are ultimately just stipulating how we are going to use words such as "understanding" and "conscious experience". That is, unless one intends to posit some positive metaphysics specific to consciousness - you know, the soul or some such.

Of course, what constitutes "true" understanding, as well as "true" conscious experience, is anyone's guess. I don't think there is a metaphysical truth of the matter here, because we are ultimately just stipulating how we are going to use words such as "understanding" and "conscious experience". — SophistiCat

We don't have to use those words. The sky looks blue to me on a clear, sunny day. But if I could see the rest of the EM spectrum in some range of color, it would look quite different. But what color is the sky when nobody's looking?

That might sound like a silly question, but consider that asking about other properties of light or the atmosphere when nobody is looking is answerable by physics. So then, where does the experience of color come from, if it's not in the sky or photons of visible light?

A tempting answer is to say that the visual cortex of the brain generates color. But when the brain is examined, there is no color to be found there, of course. So where is that color experience taking place?

Maybe it's in the interaction between the visual system and the environment. But that's just moving the problem from the brain to the entire visual system. There is still no color to be found. It's only there when someone is experiencing it.

So we end up with an objective/subjective divide. The objective account of vision leaves out the color experience.

That's why when we want to know what a bat experiences, if anything, when using echolocation, we have no way of answering that question, since we lack bat experiences, unless we can correlate bat neurophysiology for echolocation with our physiology for some experience we have.

It's the same problem a person born blind from birth will have in trying to imagine what a rainbow experience is like. No amount of third person explanation can relay color experiences.

That is, unless one intends to posit some positive metaphysics specific to consciousness - you know, the soul or some such. — SophistiCat

I'm under the impression that modern philosophers don't appeal to the soul when defending versions of consciousness which aren't explainable in physical terms. Rather, they come to the conclusion that physicalism is false.

I'm under the impression that modern philosophers don't appeal to the soul when defending versions of consciousness which aren't explainable in physical terms. Rather, they come to the conclusion that physicalism is false. — Marchesk

Do physicalists think consciousness is "explainable" in physical terms? Life isn't even explained in physical terms, but rather in terms of abstractions that supervene on the physical.

Do physicalists think consciousness is "explainable" in physical terms? Life isn't even explained in physical terms, but rather in terms of abstractions that supervene on the physical. — tom

They think consciousness is explainable in term of abstractions that supervene on the physical, such as neuroscience. So if neuroscience can fully explain color experience (at some point in the future), then it's physical.

More broadly, it's about whether an objective account can be given for subjectivity. Tying this back to the OP, if there is such an objective account, then it might be computable, and if so, then there should be some algorithm for computing an experience of seeing blue. And if that's the case, then why wouldn't a pencil and paper computation of the algorithm result in that experience?

Let's say an algorithm was discovered that would give machines the ability to have experiences of color, sound, or whateve

Inert things don't think or feel, and I think it is a mistake (voodoo) to attribute either property to inanimate objects. Pencil and paper are tools same as the computer. All tools have some designed function, pencil to write, paper to be written upon and computer to conserve paper and save tired wrists :). The fact that the computer has a drastically more complex design does not make it anything more than a tool.

They think consciousness is explainable in term of abstractions that supervene on the physical, such as neuroscience. So if neuroscience can fully explain color experience (at some point in the future), then it's physical. — Marchesk

I doubt that the science which will deal with the abstractions that are conscious will be neuroscience. When the philosophical breakthrough is achieved, the natural place for the science to be placed is within psychology. The theory will be at the appropriate level of abstraction.

More broadly, it's about whether an objective account can be given for subjectivity. Tying this back to the OP, if there is such an objective account, then it might be computable, and if so, then there should be some algorithm for computing an experience of seeing blue. And if that's the case, then why wouldn't a pencil and paper computation of the algorithm result in that experience? — Marchesk

Is there an objective account of life? Can a "pencil and paper" be alive?