comment on intrinsic information

Regards Searle I respond that a number corresponds to a wide variety of things, not just a number, if analyzed in the right way within it may lay a picture, a sound, music, video, writings, etc or multiple simultaneously. This is intrinsic information, no one put it there, it is simply an aspect of this number. The feeling of understanding, may simply be something that lay within certain numbers, and as an aspect of these will be present wherever the number is present. Thus Consciousness would be a kind of intrinsic information that exists at the same time as the numerical information(just like a stored written poem exists within an encrypted binary sequence even if one were unable to decrypt it, it simply is part of the number and exists occupying the same exact space it does and will be present wherever this sequence appears).

Now regards the idea that computers can’t accomplish what man can or better, we need to assume that the brain can perform a noncomputational operation that allows it to do so. We must assume that there must be some special property of the universe, that somehow allows this. We must also say that while doing so, this special property cannot increase the computational power of a computer, or else hypercomputation would be physically possible.

Given that the brain is a machine, we must assume that if we designed a new biological thinking conscious machine from the ground up, some aspect of our design must tap this special property. But what would constitute it? As far as is known, consciousness does not depend on the exact molecular composition of the brain, I see no reason why different functionally equivalent neurotransmitter molecules and receptor proteins wouldn’t also produce consciousness. If evolution had happened to use different molecules or the proteins used where different, I honestly think it implausible to suggest the resulting organism wouldn’t exhibit consciousness if all the related changes where functionally equivalent.

That said toassume impossibility of computer consciousness we would also have to assume that digital physics is impossible. That there is some inherent property of the world that is not informational in nature. Keep in mind, that the brain does not have direct access to the world, all the information that enters the brain is action potentials and the same, in kind, from all sense except in a statistical way, that is yes or no, digital information. IF there is some special property to the universe for consciousness it somehow extracts qualia from digital information not from reality. So what sort of property could take in digital information and somehow its procedure generate noncomputable states that result in digital information being outputted. Keep in mind that within the brain, that is between brain areas, the information exchanged is also digital in nature, action potentials.-link