Here is another attempt to rephrase one of the opinions hold within the philosophy camp:
Imagine 3 black boxes, each of them containing a quantum-level emulation of some existing physical system. Two boxes contain the emulations of two different human beings and one box the emulation of an environment.
Assume that if you were to connect all 3 black boxes and observe the behavior of the two humans and their interactions you would be able to verify that the behavior of the humans, including their utterances, would equal that of the originals.
If one was to disconnect one of the black boxes containing the emulation of a human and store it within the original physical environment, containing the other original human being, the new system would not exhibit the same behavior as either the system of black boxes or the genuinely physical system.
A system made up of black boxes containing emulations of physical objects and genuinely physical objects does not equal a system made up of only black boxes or physical objects alone.
Emulations only exhibit emulated behavior.
The black boxes only exhibit a representation of the behavior of the physical systems they are emulating.
The black boxes are only able to emulate a representation of behavior given an equally emulated environment.
The representations of the original physical systems that are being emulated within the black boxes are one level removed from the originals. A composition of those levels will exhibit a different interrelationship.
Once you enable the black box to interact with the higher level in which it resides, the system made up of the black box, the original environment and the human being (representation-level / physical-level / physical-level) will approach the behavior exhibited in a context of emulated systems and the original physical system.
You can equip the black box with sensors and loudspeakers yet it will not exhibit the same behavior. You can further equip it with an avatar, still, the original and emulated human will treat an avatar differently than another original, respectively emulated human. You can give it a robot body. The behavior will still not equal that of the behavior that a system consisting of the original physical systems would exhibit and neither the behavior that would be exhibited in the context of a system made up of emulations.
You may continue to tweak what was once the black box containing an emulation of a human being. But as you approach a system that will exhibit the same behavior as the original system you are slowly reproducing the original human being, you are turning the representation into a reproduction.
...This argument strikes me as, pardon me, tremendously silly. Just off the top of my head, it seems to still hold if you replace the ‘quantum level simulation of a person’ with an exact duplicate of the original brain in a saline bath, hooked up to a feed of oxygenated blood. Should we therefore conclude that human brains are not conscious?
EDIT: Oh blast, didn’t realize this was from months ago.
Here is another attempt to rephrase one of the opinions hold within the philosophy camp:
Imagine 3 black boxes, each of them containing a quantum-level emulation of some existing physical system. Two boxes contain the emulations of two different human beings and one box the emulation of an environment.
Assume that if you were to connect all 3 black boxes and observe the behavior of the two humans and their interactions you would be able to verify that the behavior of the humans, including their utterances, would equal that of the originals.
If one was to disconnect one of the black boxes containing the emulation of a human and store it within the original physical environment, containing the other original human being, the new system would not exhibit the same behavior as either the system of black boxes or the genuinely physical system.
A system made up of black boxes containing emulations of physical objects and genuinely physical objects does not equal a system made up of only black boxes or physical objects alone.
Emulations only exhibit emulated behavior.
The black boxes only exhibit a representation of the behavior of the physical systems they are emulating.
The black boxes are only able to emulate a representation of behavior given an equally emulated environment.
The representations of the original physical systems that are being emulated within the black boxes are one level removed from the originals. A composition of those levels will exhibit a different interrelationship.
Once you enable the black box to interact with the higher level in which it resides, the system made up of the black box, the original environment and the human being (representation-level / physical-level / physical-level) will approach the behavior exhibited in a context of emulated systems and the original physical system.
You can equip the black box with sensors and loudspeakers yet it will not exhibit the same behavior. You can further equip it with an avatar, still, the original and emulated human will treat an avatar differently than another original, respectively emulated human. You can give it a robot body. The behavior will still not equal that of the behavior that a system consisting of the original physical systems would exhibit and neither the behavior that would be exhibited in the context of a system made up of emulations.
You may continue to tweak what was once the black box containing an emulation of a human being. But as you approach a system that will exhibit the same behavior as the original system you are slowly reproducing the original human being, you are turning the representation into a reproduction.
...This argument strikes me as, pardon me, tremendously silly. Just off the top of my head, it seems to still hold if you replace the ‘quantum level simulation of a person’ with an exact duplicate of the original brain in a saline bath, hooked up to a feed of oxygenated blood. Should we therefore conclude that human brains are not conscious?
EDIT: Oh blast, didn’t realize this was from months ago.