I would argue for "pancyberpsychism" (I'm no good at naming - is there a name for that already?) which is to say that there it is something it is like to do information processing of any kind. However, the quality of the consciousness involved in that processing is related to its dynamics. So banging on a rock involves a primitive form of information processing, as vibrations ripple through the rock - there it is something it is like for that rock to be banged on. For ongoing consciousness, some sort of feedback loop must be involved. A thermostat would be a primitive example of this, or a simple oscillating electric circuit. The main idea is that consciousness is associated with cybernetic organization and has nothing to do with substrate, which might be material or virtual.
In the Chinese Room example the cybernetic characteristics of the thought experiment lack any true feedback mechanism. This is the case with most instances of software as we know it - e.g. traditional chess engines. There is something it is like to be them, but it's not anything we would recognize in terms of ongoing subjective awareness. One could argue that operation systems (including Mars Rovers) embody the cybernetic dynamics necessary for ongoing experience, but I'd guess that what it's like to be an operating system would be pretty alien. With biological brains, it's all about feedback and recursivity. Small insects with rudimentary nervous systems are totally recursive, feeding sensory data in and processing it continuously. So insect consciousness is much closer to our own than ordinary Von-Neumann architecture data-processing. As nervous systems get more complex, feeding in more data and processing data in much more sophisticated ways, the consciousness involved would likewise be experienced in a richer way. Humans, with our intricate conceptual, language-based self-models, achieve true self-consciousness. The self-model is a quantum leap forward, giving us the ability to say "I am". The ego gets a bad rap but it's responsible for our ability to notice ourselves and live within and create ongoing narratives about what we are, in relation to what we aren't. This explains why ego-dissolving psychedelics lead to such profound changes in consciousness. Terren On Wed, May 1, 2019 at 3:02 PM Quentin Anciaux <allco...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > Le mer. 1 mai 2019 à 18:13, 'Cosmin Visan' via Everything List < > everything-list@googlegroups.com> a écrit : > >> How is a computer conscious ? Magic ? Are you even aware of the Chinese >> Room argument ? >> > > Yes, and how is the chinese room not conscious ? Because you have to > associate it either to the dumb person acting as processor or the rules ? > The chinese room as a whole information processing unit is conscious. If > you ask it, it will tell you so... Prove it is not. > > Quentin > >> >> -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
