Cornsail,
OK, let’s try this one more time since I’m obviously not getting my point across very well.
The simulation is intended to make it easier to see how computation should account for consciousness – by removing many of the previous obstacles that arose in earlier discussions of this topic. It obviously creates new confusions, so I will try to explain it in more detail in the hopes that will help.
In the simulation we begin with a description of atoms or subatomic particles (depending on what level we might want to start). These are not actual subatomic particles in the real world. They are defined by code, which is just a way of stating that we control from the top-down how a set of electrons will pass through logic gates. More code defines how these ‘particles’ will interact. We speak, in short-hand, of particles interacting, but what actually occurs ‘in the real world’ is electrons moving through gates, with those movements defined by the code we apply. This creates/defines a rule-following system. All of the simulated particles’ movements are mediated through electron movements just as the ‘particles’ themselves are mediated through electron movements.
This is similar to the way that we calculate in our heads – we think of a number and add that to another number. What actually happens at a neuronal level, though, is that a set of neurons fire together mediating ‘5’ and other sets of neurons fire mediating the act of adding ‘5’ to ‘3’ , for instance.
The simulation continues – again, in order to make it easier to see how it all works – to the point where we recreate everything that occurs in our own experiences. Now, all of this is mediated by electron movements within a huge computer (in the thought experiment) not by actual particles hitting one another (in the simulation). But, the fact that it is mediated by electrons moving through gates shouldn’t really matter because it is the patterns of interaction, defined/limited by the code that is important – and this is a situation in which the amount of code is minimal.
*Aside – just to interject, again, there is the issue of simulating something like ‘flight’ in which we can show a bird flying by having a computer screen light up in a way such that it makes it look like a bird is flying, and this takes considerable coding work I would assume; and there is the situation being discussed in this type of simulation in which a simulated bird ‘follows the rules’ of physical law (the code only provides the descriptions of atoms and physical laws and possibly any tweaking we would need to make the world unfold as it did, assuming perfect knowledge) and flies (the electrons in the computer producing the simulation recreate the pattern of a bird flying, just in a different form).* Granted, as an action, this is hard to see with 'flight' since we think of flight as only occurring with a 'thing', so we use the simulation in order to see it, but the actual interactions occur with the electrons. It should be easier to see this with thinking because we don't normally witness the matter involved in thinking.
To clear this issue, I hope, this is not all that different from ‘our world’ – think Ship of Theseus. We are actually a pattern of interacting parts (atoms), none of which is always a part of ‘us’ (‘us’ actually consisting of pattern). With the simulation the actual interacting parts are the electrons passing through gates, which are hard to conceptualize. Particles ‘in the simulation’ are not so hard to see in our mind’s eye. We speak of ‘in the simulation’ in the same we that we speak of ‘us’ being ‘in the world’ because that is what our language easily allows (and, no, I do not mean to imply that we are in a simulation or that a simulation is identical to ‘reality’). We live in a middle world, not at the level of cosmological or subatomic interaction. Consequently we speak as if what we experience actually occurs as it is described. I drink a cup of coffee. But what really happens is that there are many interacting vibrating strings of energy (assuming that description is correct) forming a particular interacting pattern for every component in that exchange. It is more difficult to see the interacting pattern in a computer because the way the electrons move does not take a form we are used to – like looking at a cup of coffee – meaning, the computer, at its most basic description, doesn’t actually work in this middle world. That is why we use thought experiments like the simulation – to ease visualization of the interactions.
A computer simulation that could recreate everything in our world should recreate consciousness. This doesn’t happen at the level of ‘particles’ interacting ‘in the simulation’ but in the electrons moving around through gates. Consciousness is an action – it is a pattern of interacting bits; and if we could recreate the world in a simulation, somewhere in those whizzing electron interactions is a pattern that does the same thing as me writing this on my computer consciously.
To argue against this type of scenario one must either contend that we cannot describe/recreate the patterns of the world using math/computation or that there is some other unexplainable component involved in the process.
The ‘polite fiction’ I mentioned earlier concerned the way we speak of programming languages – because we talk about coding in a way that makes it sound like it actually does something itself (like it has an independent means of interacting). But it doesn’t. Coding is just our way of organizing the rules by which electrons move through certain gates. But I think that talking at the level of electrons passing through gates makes people’s eyes glaze over. It -- the polite fiction -- is applicable to the entire discussion, but it is also applicable to discussions about ourselves since we do not want to speak of drinking coffee at the level of vibrating strings of energy. Granted, there is an extra level of abstraction in the simulation, which makes it more difficult to see what is going on and leaving us talking in very abstract terms when we get down to how it all actually occurs.
ETA:
One addition to the above -- take for example 'flight' or 'me typing on computer keys' -- what happens in the simulation (in the electrons passing through gates) is not a description of those events. We could create a program that consists in a description of those events -- like the program that has pixels light up on a screen to make it look like a bird is flying -- but the only descriptions in this simulation are the descriptions of 'particles' and physical laws. Everything else follows from them. There is no code telling electrons to pass through gates to look like I am typing on computer keys. The same is true of a 'bird flying' in the simulation. It is not a description of a bird flying but a recreation of the relationships/actions using descriptions of 'particles' that does the same thing as occurs when a bird flies past your window. Those relationships are recreated in the movement of electrons, which is what makes it so hard to see that we recreate the same relationships in the simulation; but if you ask where 'flight' is in the bird there is no way to answer the question. It isn't in the bird; it 'is' in the relationships among bird parts in relationship with its environment.
