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Comment by burrows | Hacker News Reader

> I think to some degree it's a mystery. One analogy that can partially get there, is consider if we built a really powerful computer and simulated an AI person and world inside (assuming there's no soul, this seems plausibly possible). That person would just know the simulated space and time, and would think nothing else exists, but yet we exist.

How are the words “person”, “know” and “think” being used here? Are they labels for algorithms?

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How do you think that people think? If there is nothing beyond the physical world, then the way people think is just physical interactions between microscopic particles. Those can be simulated by a powerful-enough computer. So it would be the same as the way that you think, except it would be in a simulation instead of the real physical world.

So, no, "know" and "think" are not labels for an algorithm, but labels for things that can happen inside brains, whether the brains be physical brains or virtual brains (using virtual particles instead of real particles). "person" is also not a label for an algorithm. I was a bit imprecise in my wording. It's debatable whether the virtual person could actually be referred to as a "person".

> How do you think that people think? If there is nothing beyond the physical world, then the way people think is just physical interactions between microscopic particles. Those can be simulated by a powerful-enough computer.

I believe nearly all propositions about people thinking are unintelligible.

I also believe propositions about going beyond the physical world are unintelligible.

If you’re taking about parts of software, I fail to see how you are not talking about algorithms. The use of the word “simulation” seems completely irrelevant to me.

> So, no, "know" and "think" are not labels for an algorithm, but labels for things that can happen inside brains,

Or are using the word “think” to identify some phenomena I can observe with a brain and a microscope?

>I believe nearly all propositions about people thinking are unintelligible.

Is human behavior governed purely by biological processes?

>Or are using the word “think” to identify some phenomena I can observe with a brain and a microscope?

Scientists have hooked up sensors to peoples' brains and sensed certain patterns of brain waves corresponding to certain thoughts.

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