<html><head></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div><div>On Jan 9, 2010 Gordon Swobe wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><blockquote type="cite"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; font-family: Verdana; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; ">I think consciousness will likely turn out to be just a state that natural brains can enter not unlike water can enter a state of solidity.</span></blockquote><div><br></div>In a way I sort of agree with that, but I don't see why a computer couldn't do the same thing. And not all water is solid, it's a function of temperature. In your analogy what is the equivalent of temperature? We have enormously powerful evidence that it must be intelligence. We know from direct experience that there is a one to one correspondence between consciousness and intelligence; when we are intelligent we are conscious and when we are not intelligent, as in when we are sleeping or under anesthesia, we are not conscious. </div><div><br></div><div><blockquote type="cite">Some people seem to think that if we can compute X on a computer then a computer simulation of X must equal X. But that's just a blatant non sequitur. </blockquote><br></div><div>So if I add 2+2 on my computer and you add 2+2 on your computer it's a blatant non sequitur to think that my 4 is the same as your 4.</div><div><br></div><div> John K Clark</div></body></html>