[ExI] Mental Phenomena

[Stathis Papaioannou]

On Sun, 19 Jan 2020 at 08:26, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

> What makes anyone think that a machine can experience anything?  Do we
> know that?  I don't think so.  If you claim that we do, just how are you
> measuring that?  Sounds like scifi to me. If enough humans say that they
> are experiencing a vision of a strawberry, I'd take their word for it.  I
> would assume not all would lie.  I assume nothing about a machine except
> that it is not a living thing and cannot be.   bill w
>

There is good reason to think that if the function of a brain could be
reproduced, any associated consciousness would also be reproduced. So if a
neuron could be replaced with an artificial neuron that performs the same
function, firing in response to stimulation from neurons to which it is
connected and stimulating downstream neurons, the brain as a whole would
function normally and consciousness would remain the same. If not, there
would be an absurd situation where consciousness changes but the subject
does not notice any change.

> --
Stathis Papaioannou
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