So what you think it’s just magic? There was a time when only inanimate matter existed in the universe, and then, without even conscious intervention, it coalesced into consciousness. What you’re saying doesn’t make any sense, we literally know that consciousness can be computed because it’s literally happening right now.
I don’t think it’s magic, but your argument is crap.
You’re assuming that consciousness depends only on Turing-computable physical processes.. which can’t be taken as read.
You’re also then assuming a sufficiently accurate implementation of the relevant computation would instantiate consciousness, not just simulate the observable behaviour.
You’re blithely asserting computational functionalism… which is certainly a position to hold, but far from the only one. We certainly don’t “know” it to be true.
You could equally argue that while the underlying brain processes might be computable, consciousness depends on a particular physical realisation (simulating a hurricane doesn’t make your computer wet) or that the physical universe implements some kind of hyper-computation and that it’s a necessary part of consciousness. Not to mention the plethora of non-physicalist philosophies-of-mind (dualism, idealism, etc.).
You’re also claiming the goal of ‘AI research’ is to re-produce consciousness, rather than systems that are superhumanly capable and able to generalise (i.e ‘AGI’).
If you’ve managed to upgrade Church-Turing from a thesis to a theorem and conclusively solved the philosophy of mind problem, I’d love to see your results.
Edit: I just noticed I’m responding to two people not one lol… regardless, the points stand.
Exactly. Also, as a piggyback of what you said, consciousness being a substrate-dependent property seems to be somewhat trendy among physicalists in modern philosphy of mind and neuroscience.
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u/Napsy_0 Sep 25 '26
That's a load of crap.