this post was submitted on 19 Dec 2025
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Philosophy
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Yes, but what is consciousness. Why is replacing logic gates, or code with biological neurons actually different? Sure we know the exact details of how the computer runs software, but why does understanding it matter. If we lost the plans to a computer, or the source code to a program, would it make any difference? A brain is just a more complex biological computer, what makes it special?
I’m doubtful that the physical world is Turing complete. I don’t see how any series of X86 instructions can produce any form consciousness. That is, unless we accept that the calculation of 1 + 1 = 2 may produce some consciousness. Is everything computable conscious, or is consciousness limited to some computations?
The physical world is not Turing complete for sure because of quantum mechanics. But I don't see why quantum mechanics would lead to consciousness. The fact is that we can't know what leads to consciousness as we can't measure it in any meaningful way. You can only know that you are conscious. You cannot know if any other thing is conscious. There's no where to draw the line. It's hard to see an inanimate object could be conscious, or that a computer running a neural net could create consciousness, but maybe it's just a matter of scale. And a non- linear scale. One needs a certain amount of complexity before consciousness is meaningful. Is a mouse conscious? An ant?