As computationalists, we agree that the human being represented by the one tape turing machine is feeling just as real pain as we are.
This is a deeply confused argument. I can simulate a spring-mass harmonic oscillator, and argue that the simulated spring has the same elasticity as some particular spring in the real world. But that elasticity is a property of the simulation, not the physical substrate. The computer chip running the simulation is not an elastic spring. Similarly, the Turing machine simulating a human being does not experience any physical pain.
The Turing machine doing the simulating does not experience pain, but the human being being simulated does.
Similarly, the waterfall argument found in the linked paper seems as though it could as-easily be used to argue that none of the humans in the solar system have intelligence unless there’s an external observer to impose meaning on the neural patterns.
A lone mathematical equation is meaningless without a mind able to read it and understand what its squiggles can represent, but functioning neural patterns which respond to available stimuli causally(/through reliable cause-and-effect) are the same whether emboided in cell weights or in tape states. (So, unless one wishes to ignore one’s own subjective consciousness and declare oneself a zombie...)
For the actual-versus-potential question, I am doubtful regarding the answer, but for the moment I imagine a group of people in a closed system (say, an experiment room), suddenly (non-lethally) frozen in ice by a scientist overseeing the experiment. If the scientist were to later unfreeze the room, then perhaps certain things would definitely happen if the system remained closed. However, if it were never unfrozen, then they would never happen. Also, if they were frozen yet the scientist decided to interfere in the experiment and make the system no longer a closed system, then different things would happen. As with the timestream in normal life, ‘pain’ (etc.) is only said to take place at the moment that it is actually carried out. (And if one had all states laid out simultaneously, like a 4D person looking at all events in one glance from past to present, then ‘pain’ would only be relevant for the one point/section that one could point to in which it was being carried out, rather than in the entire thing.)
Now though, the question of the pain undergone by the models in the predicting scientist’s mind (perhaps using his/her/its own pain-feeling systems for maximum simulation accuracy) by contrast… hmm.
This is a deeply confused argument. I can simulate a spring-mass harmonic oscillator, and argue that the simulated spring has the same elasticity as some particular spring in the real world. But that elasticity is a property of the simulation, not the physical substrate. The computer chip running the simulation is not an elastic spring. Similarly, the Turing machine simulating a human being does not experience any physical pain.
Computationalists think that consciousness is like addition rather than elasticity.
If the simulation is running fast enough, the simulated human can give you a very authentic-sounding description of their pain.
Does the program being executed by the Turing machine experience pain? Does the question even have an answer?
The Turing machine doing the simulating does not experience pain, but the human being being simulated does.
Similarly, the waterfall argument found in the linked paper seems as though it could as-easily be used to argue that none of the humans in the solar system have intelligence unless there’s an external observer to impose meaning on the neural patterns.
A lone mathematical equation is meaningless without a mind able to read it and understand what its squiggles can represent, but functioning neural patterns which respond to available stimuli causally(/through reliable cause-and-effect) are the same whether emboided in cell weights or in tape states. (So, unless one wishes to ignore one’s own subjective consciousness and declare oneself a zombie...)
For the actual-versus-potential question, I am doubtful regarding the answer, but for the moment I imagine a group of people in a closed system (say, an experiment room), suddenly (non-lethally) frozen in ice by a scientist overseeing the experiment. If the scientist were to later unfreeze the room, then perhaps certain things would definitely happen if the system remained closed. However, if it were never unfrozen, then they would never happen. Also, if they were frozen yet the scientist decided to interfere in the experiment and make the system no longer a closed system, then different things would happen. As with the timestream in normal life, ‘pain’ (etc.) is only said to take place at the moment that it is actually carried out. (And if one had all states laid out simultaneously, like a 4D person looking at all events in one glance from past to present, then ‘pain’ would only be relevant for the one point/section that one could point to in which it was being carried out, rather than in the entire thing.)
Now though, the question of the pain undergone by the models in the predicting scientist’s mind (perhaps using his/her/its own pain-feeling systems for maximum simulation accuracy) by contrast… hmm.