Comment on AI and consciousness in reply to starspawn0

. I agree that the phenomenology of the brain probably can't be accurately captured by a digital computer; but I think the information processing part can be adequately mimicked. The machine may not "feel" the meaning of the things it reads and writes in the same way as a human; but it will be competent -- and so I would say that it understands language. -starspawn0

I think the problem people have is that computation can be boiled down even to simple repeated addition with conditional branching(and some say even with unconditional branching).

This is the main result of this paper. Therefore any computable function can be computed using only the instructions LOAD, STORE, INC and GOTO (unconditional branching). https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/8bc7/d9ba040a3626462f3bc91e17f1e8794b9b79.pdf

Just adding and moving from one location to another.

Of course that will have trouble generating consciousness. The key insight, unless I'm misguided, I would say is that consciousness does not reside in the procedure, any procedure, but in the digital patterns created. Those created by the brain and those created by computers. It is intrinsic information within certain set of patterns, perhaps within all patterns. The type of pattern describes the type of conscious sensation and its complexity.

Note that for example in vision, there are multiple segments of the visual field, but they exist and are felt simultaneously. Same happens with audio, it is processed at a different rate, yet felt simultaneous with vision. As with touch, touch your feet or someone touches your feet, the touch sensation travels slower, iirc, yet it is felt simultaneous. The brain appears to packet information into conscious moments, or presents, simultaneity, the transition probably handled by neurons whose activity corresponds to a sensation of detected movement or change, detectors of change(which might explain why some individuals with some types of brain damage experience sight as a series or sequence of static photos.).

While it is controversial the views of digital physics hold the universe itself is digital in nature, a series of digital patterns may be all that exist, and if they can be shown to generate consciousness, they can most certainly generate the universe itself which is less wondrous than consciousness itself.

Note that if we think about advanced brain computer interface, it is likely they can finely record brain activity in a digital medium, and the replaying of those digital memories into the brain will result in conscious sensation. If properly translated they will also transmit conscious sensation from brain to brain. Is what is stored lacking the essence of consciousness? Is what is transmitted lacking it? Is the brain carrying some form of information transmutation into qualia? Or is the information contained within the patterns so stored and transmitted?