Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
For example, if I am running an AI program on my computer and a particular bitstring is associated with the simulated being noting, "I think, therefore I am", then should not the same bitstring arising by chance in the course of, say, a spreadsheet calculation give rise to the same moment of consciousness - regardless of whether the spreadsheet user or anyone other than the simulated being himself is or can be aware of this?
Only if you believe it's the bitstring itself which is mapped to a particular conscious experience, rather than the causal pattern enacted by the AI program's computation that led it to produce that bitstring. So if you believe in "psychophysical laws" (to use a term I have seen some philosophers use), it depends on how these laws map facts about the physical world to facts about first-person experience.
Jesse
