I AM, therefore I think

Originally posted by Historical-Mozart
Yes, computers will someday replicate the biological thinking process of a human brain, but they will NEVER replicate consciousness. NEVER.

Problem. If they do replicate consciouness, it does nothing for the materialists' case. Think, will they be able to explain WHY it is, assuming any report it makes is trustworthy? No. They're no closer to anything even in that case other than to say the universe does something with organization and processing that they don't understand, something beyond the apparent sum of the processes themselves.

Claiming it's some level of complexity is just magical thinking. It's especially bad when it's claimed it has to do what a human does. Why ignore other lifeforms? What possible real basis is there for that? Yeah, I've read about various experiments but the conclusion is preordained by the criteria, which is pulled from what exactly?

Claiming it is inherent to the processess also tends to admit to the possibility that computing the answer to 1+1 has some awareness. If it didn't then doing trillions and trillions of various operations should not either. Same goes for the atoms and everything around you.

If it isn't, will it be able to say so? If so and you can believe the accuracy of the report, it proves that there is something unique about living entities.

But clearly it's possible to construct devices that through some means possess consciousness. If a soul is involved, perhaps there would be eagar ones waiting for an artificial brain and body. It would be a new kind of life experience for them.

Either way, it opens up huge new can of worms or at the very least doesn't close an old one.