[ExI] The second step towards immortality

[Adrian Tymes]

On Jan 9, 2014 3:01 PM, "Anders Sandberg" <anders at aleph.se> wrote:
> If what you care about is the stuff coming out of the black box, then
what matters is whether there are any relevant differences between the
output and what it should be. But sometimes we care about how the stuff is
made.

Consider why we care, though.  Often it signals that the stuff coming out
is not in fact the same, or that there is different stuff going in.

To take your child labor vs. microprocessors example, food and water are
necessary inputs to the former - and eventually, replacement children.

We can not prove that, at some level, our brains are not "just" code.  It
is entirely possible to take typical, functioning human beings, and declare
everything they do to be some preprogrammed mechanism, and no one can
absolutely prove otherwise.  By the same token, any code that looks to all
black box inspections to be sentient, IS sentient as far as we can prove.

(Of course, it needs to actually pass all said inspections.  No computer
code yet has been able to do that.)
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