But that is precisely the point..... the fact that we can imagine things is exactly the point.
When we imagine things that have never existed in reality it means that we created something that has no basis in reality.
This does not then make it possible to become reality just because our real brain imagined it. There will never exist a flying spaghetti monster just because we could imagine one.
Therein lays the problem with this debate.
We can IMAGINE that a simulated sentient world can exist in the ones and zeros of silicon chips.....but that does mean that it is POSSIBLE for this imaginary construct to actually exist.
There are REAL PHYSICAL constraints why it cannot exist. These constraints cannot be IMAGINED AWAY.
We can imagine that a machine that simulates the action of the brain as we understand it may give rise to a brain like a real brain. But the imaginary aspect did not take into account the real physical constraints why this may not be possible.
The brain is the result of billions of years of evolution that eventually gave rise to the bundle of biological matter that interacts within and without itself and can maintain electrical impulses from within and without while also modifying, reverberating, attenuating, augmenting and initiating these signals and cross talking and cross sparking and so on and so forth along with a combination of internal and external positive and negative feedback systems that give rise to even more feedback.
I think it stands to reason that an inert collection of doped Silicon might not quite be up to the same task since the kind of processes that occur in the brain are not taking place regardless of the simulation being run. The physical process is NOT the same process.
The design of a high frequency circuit has to take into consideration the effects of lengths and width and proximity of conducting lines and ground planes which at low frequencies do not affect the system. A perfectly working digital logic circuit can fail if the frequency of switching is raised beyond a certain level due to capacitances and inductances that at the lower frequencies had no effect while at the higher frequencies made all the difference.
When we build scale models to carry out some experiments say of earthquake effects on a dam we do not just scale down things. There has to be further consideration for the fact that some things behave differently at a small scale than at the larger scale. For example the surface tension of water and Van der Waal forces can come into play at the smaller scale while at the larger scale they are immaterial.
Take for example the
Jesus Lizard. If it is scaled up it won’t be able to run on water….yet it is the same lizard for all intents and purposes. Something got lost in the transformation…. What is it?
What I am trying to say with all this is that certain SYNERGETIC and EMERGENT properties of COMPLEX systems can be drastically affected due to differences in physical interactions within the subsystems and changing the nature or scale of these physical interactions will change the overall system and most likely not give rise to the same emergent and synergetic effects.
about it…. Whatever it is, it is not magical nor supernatural or extra-natural. It is mainly the result of the physics, chemistry and biology of how the brain works
