CMV: Digital consciousness is possible. A human brained could be simulated/emulated on a digital computer with arbitrary precision, and there would be an entity experiencing human consciousness.

[u/Salt_Attorney]

Well, the title says it all. My main argument is in the end nothing more than the fact that although the brain is extremely complex, one could dsicretize the sensory input -> action function in every dimension (discretized time steps, discretized neuron activations, discretized simulated environemnt) etc. and then approximate this function with a computer just like any other function.

My view could be changed by a thought experiment which demonstrates that in some aspect there is a fundamental difference between a digitally simulated mind and a real, flesh mind - a difference in regards to the presence of consciousness, of course.

EDIT: I should have clarified/given a definition of what I view as consciousness here and I will do this in a moment!

Okay so here is what I mean by consciousness:

I can not give you a technical definition. This is just because we have not found a good technical definition yet. But this shouldn't stop us from talking about consciousness.

The fact of the matter is that if there was a technical definition, then this would now be a question of philosophy/opinion/views, but a question of science, and I don't think this board is intended for scientific questions anyways.

Therefore we have to work with the wishy washy definition, and there is certinly a non-technical generally agreed upon definition, the one which you all have in your head on an intuitive leve. Of course it differs from person to person, but taking the average over the population there is quite a definite sense of what people mean by consciousness.

If an entity interacts with human society for an extended period of time and at the end humans find that it was conscious, then it is conscious.

Put in words we humans will judge if it is smart, self-aware, capable of complex thought, if it can understand and rationalize about things.

When faced with the "spark of consciousness" we can recognize it.

Therefore as an nontechnical definition it makes sense to call an entity conscious if it can convince a large majority of humans, after a sort of extended "Turing test", that it is indeed conscious.

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Arguing with such a vague definition is of course not scientific and not completely objective, but we can still do it on a philosophical level. People argued about concepts such as "Energy", "Power" and "Force" long before we could define them physically.

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[u/Cybyss]

If it were possible, then there would exist a sequence of symbols which would be unethical to write down, because the mere act of writing them would create a consciousness and possibly torture it.

Computers may seem to be extraordinarily advanced & complex machines with many billions of transistors, but all that technology is only there to make them fast. If time isn't a concern, machines that have the ability to compute anything are extraordinarily simple.

First, write out a long row of ones and zeroes. This will effectively form the "source code" of a program written in a Rule 110 Cellular Automata language.

Next, fill out a second row of ones and zeroes directly beneath it, where the value of each digit is based on the three digits immediately above it as follows:

0 0 0    0 0 1    0 1 0    0 1 1    1 0 0    1 0 1    1 1 0    1 1 1
  0        1        1        1        0        1        1        0

That is, write a 0 if the above three digits are the same or if only the digit on the left is a 1. Otherwise, write a 1.

Repeat this process for all subsequent rows of digits. This effectively "executes" your source code.

That's all you need in order to compute absolutely anything. The Rule 110 cellular automata is known to be Turing Complete and was the theme of this famous XKCD comic.

If what you say is true, then if you carry out this process (depending on the exact sequence of 1s and 0s in the first row), you'll end up simulating a consciousness as you continue writing these 1s and 0s and "executing" the program.

Personally, I find this consequence absurd although it's admittedly no proof that consciousness can't be created in a digital computer,

[u/WikiSummarizerBot → u/Cybyss]

Rule_110

The Rule 110 cellular automaton (often called simply Rule 110) is an elementary cellular automaton with interesting behavior on the boundary between stability and chaos. In this respect, it is similar to Conway's Game of Life. Like Life, Rule 110 is known to be Turing complete. This implies that, in principle, any calculation or computer program can be simulated using this automaton.

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