Once you define consciousness it might be easy to implement. If I use the definition "perception of our own thoughts" it's already implemented with ps or activity monitor. The mystery is how this is done biologically and how evolution had led to it. But the implementation with computers is trivial.
We do not know how the universe works on a fundamental level. We don't know if the universe can be simulated by a Turing machine.
I think it's clear it can't.
1) I have subjective experience (there is something that it is like to be me). 2) My subjective experience is outside of what math can describe (perhaps math can describe the degree to which I experience each qualia, but that is different from experiencing the qualia themselves). 3) I am able to take this experience and write that I know that there is something beyond mathematical rules that exists. 4) My behaviour (what words I write) is influenced by the existence of something non-mathematical. 5) My behaviour can't be described as a mathematical function of the past.
Mind you, i dont think either side of the debate has much in way of evidence, so it ends up coming down to just what feels "right" which is pretty unsatisfactory.
2) Prove it.
3) The fact that you're able to write this doesn't make it true.
4) Is it? What? Again, prove it.
5) What else is it a function of, then?
5) It may be a function of the past, just not one that can be given a mathematical definition. I should have said "defined" rather than "described".
At a rhetorical level: Don't fixate on what math can or cannot describe. In the past, it could not describe states of matter, though they certainly existed. Now, we can describe and simulate such states pretty well. But describing, detecting, or simulating does not mean recreating. I don't think any of us currently "know" whether consciousness will be better described, detected, or simulated in the future.
At an introspective level: When pondering the "experience of being me", don't forget to question the identity concept "me" as much as the experience part... Consider altered states of consciousness through drugs, disease, or brain injury. It can really expand your view here to empathize with someone who suffers one or more of these issues, where you can consider their illusory identity and experience.
“My subjective experience is outside of what math can describe”?
If there was a perfect identical copy of you, down to the quantum level, would they have nearly the exact same subjective experience or not?
If not, why?
(Of course, they couldn’t be in the exact same location as you, which means the experience can’t be perfectly identical).
> If there was a perfect identical copy of you, down to the quantum level, would they have nearly the exact same subjective experience or not?
The copy would likely have similar experience and behaviour. So you could say that my behaviour is a mathematical function of the past in the sense that every input maps to a unique output. But it doesn't mean that which inputs map to which outputs can be fully described by math. Maybe I should say "defined" instead of "described". In any formal system, only countably many functions can be defined, but there are an uncountable number of possible behaviour functions. I think the universe's behaviour must lie in this uncountable space for any computable formal system.
Isn't that everything though?
Math can describe a stop sign. It can say it is a red octagon or whatever. That doesn't mean it is the stop sign.
Math does not have independent existence in the world (sorry platonists), its just a really formal language for describing the patterns we see.
> 5) My behaviour can't be described as a mathematical function of the past.
Neither can particles (if you mean exactly)