Comment by ncallaway | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ncallaway | Hacker News Reader

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Do you think the self-consciousness that we possess is the result of physical processes going on in our brain and body, or do you think something outside of physics is required?

If I made a careful atom by atom (or quark/lepton/boson) copy of every atom in your brain and body in a different location, would that new copy be intelligent?

If our intelligence is purely a result of physical processes, then why do you suppose it would be impossible for us (or more advanced future beings), to construct a machine which can also follow those processes?

If you think your intelligence is not reducible to purely physical processes, then… what is this meta-physical thing that is required for intelligence? Does it interact with anything other than intelligence, or is it only involved with intelligence? Is there any reason or evidence we should assume this meta-physical intelligence?

> ..., or do you think something outside of physics is required?

I am most sympathetic to the argument that self-consciousness is an emergent phenomenon that is not easily modeled, but is nevertheless derived from physics. In the context of my previous comment, it is this emergent phenomenon that is deemed "intelligent".

> If I made a careful atom by atom (or quark/lepton/boson) copy of every atom in your brain and body in a different location, would that new copy be intelligent?

Yes.

> If our intelligence is purely a result of physical processes, then why do you suppose it would be impossible for us (or more advanced future beings), to construct a machine which can also follow those processes?

I think it is possible, and not too far off to boot. We might get (maybe we already have gotten) the intelligence without the particular emergent phenomenon of self-consciousness that is of the kind humans possess, at least not at first. Some of us will call that AGI, some of us won't. Because we are still working out the terminology and taxonomy. Discussions like these in HN help.

Maybe we'll get the emergent phenomenon soon thereafter. If it is in fact intractable to model (and therefore to train for directly), it may happen unpredictably. Exciting times.

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