Hon Weng Chong

"Computational simulations generally lack the causal powers and intrinsic properties of the things being simulated. A simulation of the digestive system does not actually digest anything. A simulation of a rainstorm does not make anything actually wet. If we simulate a living creature, we have not created life. In general, a computational simulation of X does not bring X into being — does not instantiate X — unless X is a computational process (specifically, an algorithm) itself. Making the point from the other direction, the fact that X can be simulated computationally does not justify the conclusion that X is itself computational. In most cases, the distinction between simulation and instantiation is obvious and uncontroversial. It should be obvious and uncontroversial for consciousness, too. A computational simulation of the brain (and body), however detailed it may be, will only give rise to consciousness if consciousness is a matter of computation. In other words, the prospect of instantiating consciousness through some kind of whole-brain emulation, at some arbitrarily high level of detail, already assumes that computational functionalism is true. But as I have argued, this assumption is likely wrong and certainly should not be accepted axiomatically. This brings us back to the poverty of the brain-as-computer metaphor. If you think that everything that matters about brains can be captured by abstract neural networks, then it’s natural to think that simulating the brain on a digital computer will instantiate all its properties, including consciousness, since in this case, everything that matters is, by assumption, algorithmic. This is the “Turing world” view of the brain." noemamag.com/the-mythology-o…