On 8/8/2019 3:26 PM, Jason Resch wrote:
On Thursday, August 8, 2019, 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:On 8/8/2019 2:39 PM, Jason Resch wrote:On Thu, Aug 8, 2019 at 4:29 PM 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: On 8/8/2019 2:05 PM, Jason Resch wrote:Quantum computers can emulate any classical computation. If a brain emulated on a quantum computer answers "no" when asked the question "are you conscious?" while the same brain emulated on a Pentium III processor answers "yes" when asked the same question, then you have a violation of the Church-Turing thesis.The Church-Turing thesis doesn't show that a computer must be ignorant of everything about it. Because any program can be run as part of an emulation of some particular hardware implementation running that program, no program can be implemented that can make a certain determination about its ultimate computing substrate. This is exploited to run emulators <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game_console_emulator> of different gaming hardware, or virtual machines <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_machine>. This is a direct consequence of any Turing Machine being able to simulated any other. If a program's behavior would branch differently based on its ultimate computing substrate, you could use this as a routine to determine the underlying computing substrate, and it would make it impossible for one Turing machine to simulate that other one.If you are actually running the same algorithim on the quantum computer and the Pentium III, then they must both give the same answer. So your hypothetical has a false premise.Right, so then you are left with a zombie computation. (Unless you agree with me that it would be conscious).
I agree that it would be just as conscious as the classical computer running the same algorithm (whether simply saying you are conscious makes it so is a different question).
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