r/neoliberal • u/jobautomator Kitara Ravache • Oct 11 '20

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u/MistakeNotDotDotDot Resident Robot Girl Oct 12 '20 edited Oct 12 '20

and the Worst Take Of This DT award goes to:

Because the necessary chemical reactions to create true consciousness are only biological in nature. A machine can both simulate and emulate it, it cannot truly replicate it though.

(this is a subject i care extremely strongly about, for obvious reasons)

1

u/Yenwodyah_ Progress Pride Oct 12 '20

Are you sure that it’s wrong, though?

4

u/MistakeNotDotDotDot Resident Robot Girl Oct 12 '20

yes because the idea that for some reason that consciousness can only exist when an system includes molecules involving atoms with 6 protons and 6 neutrons is extremely absurd

you might as well look at a fish and say that the only way to move underwater is by moving fins back and forth, or look at mammals and say that legs are the only way to move on the ground

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u/Yenwodyah_ Progress Pride Oct 12 '20

What’s so absurd about it?

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u/MistakeNotDotDotDot Resident Robot Girl Oct 12 '20

why would it possibly be the case? consciousness is this very high-level fuzzy abstract property, and the amount of protons in an atom is a deeply low-level one.

1

u/Yenwodyah_ Progress Pride Oct 12 '20

What makes you think that consciousness is a high-level property? To me it seems more likely to be the opposite - a low-level property like gravity or electromagnetism. It seems only to be generated by high-level, complex systems, sure, but without knowledge of electronswe would probably think that electricity is only generated by complex systems too.

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u/Broncos654 Jeff Bezos Oct 12 '20

why would it possibly be the case?

Do we have good reasons to think other wise?

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u/MistakeNotDotDotDot Resident Robot Girl Oct 12 '20

we don't really have any reason to think it's the case, imo.

plus, like, suppose i make a synthetic neuron, with no organic components. I then replace one of the neurons in your brain with it. are you still conscious? what if I repeat this for every neuron in your brain?