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aneil | 3 years ago

I think the burden is on the proponents. Otherwise anyone could make any assertion - for example, that action potentials cause consciousness, or that influx of ions cause consciousness, or that vibrations cause consciousness, or that only humans are conscious. Like "computation is consciousness" those are just all just, perhaps, correlates of consciousness, not mechanisms for producing it.

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V-2|3 years ago

The Occam's razor favors the simpler explanation though.

aneil|3 years ago

Why is "emerging from computation" simple? As an explanation, it seems vastly more complex. I mean, the laws of physics don't even contain terms for defining or valuing computation. Even my examples (which were meant to be bad arbitrary explanations) at least have the benefit of being describable as physical quantities. So at least one side of the explanation is already grounded in things that physics recognizes.

whaaswijk|3 years ago

What explanation are you referring to though? Just saying consciousness is an emergent property is not an explanation. Rather it is an assertion.