Been thinking on this thought experiment a bit recently:
Assume:
A) whatever consciousness is occurs in the matter in your skull
B) consciousness is emergent from the state of neurons and their transitions (even if we don't understand the neuron types or "map")
C) "substrate independence": consciousness is memory and computation regardless of whether it is occuring in silicon or meat.
Know:
I) We can record and playback neuronal activity in mice and show they behave as if reliving the recorded experience (overwrite activations)
Imagine:
1) Do the same on a human, recording all state (say 10 minutes), replaying it. A lived experience.
2) Remove the connections between neurons (you are overwriting the activation anyway) and do the replay. This should still be a conscious experience.
3) Without the interconnects, the neurons could be arbitrarily located, say, outside a skull, distributed around a lab. Something is still having a conscious experience are they not?
Kicker:
4) If 4 is true, then the state being replayed by a computer falls under the same deduction does it not? Cannot it be said that the conscious experience is occuring in two places?
@trevorflowers Whatever that something is, it doesn't know it's not me staring out of the kitchen window thinking about this.
@trevorflowers (for instance, that is)
@cda Yes, though "something" is doing a lot of subtle work in #3.