If [naturalism] is true, then all minds, and all the contents and powers and effects of minds, are entirely caused by natural [i.e. fundamentally nonmental] phenomena. But if naturalism is false, then some minds, or some of the contents or powers or effects of minds, are causally independent of nature. In other words, such things would then be partly or wholly caused by themselves, or exist or operate directly or fundamentally on their own.
It’s not a matter of whether they are “made of different stuff” but if they are made of stuff at all. A simulator is no more supernatural to us than we are to a boxed AI; we’re both running inside the same material universe, just in different ways.
The boxed AI runs inside a universe that follow the laws of Turing computing.
Nature is the stuff around us. A simulation simulates nature. The one who runs the simulation isn’t part of that nature. The simulator can exist without needing anything from the nature in with John lives.
If I’m reading Harry Potter, Harry Potter lives in a world where magic happens. I don’t. Those two world are fundamentally different. The magic that happens in Harry Potter’s world is causally independent from myself.
— Richard Carrier
It’s not a matter of whether they are “made of different stuff” but if they are made of stuff at all. A simulator is no more supernatural to us than we are to a boxed AI; we’re both running inside the same material universe, just in different ways.
The boxed AI runs inside a universe that follow the laws of Turing computing.
Nature is the stuff around us. A simulation simulates nature. The one who runs the simulation isn’t part of that nature. The simulator can exist without needing anything from the nature in with John lives.
If I’m reading Harry Potter, Harry Potter lives in a world where magic happens. I don’t. Those two world are fundamentally different. The magic that happens in Harry Potter’s world is causally independent from myself.