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JamesAndrix comments on Consciousness of simulations & uploads: a reductio - Less Wrong
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This might be a case where flawed intuition is correct.
The chain of causality leading to the 'yes' is MUCH weaker in the pencil and paper version. You imagine squiggles as mere squiggles, not as signals that inexorably cause you to carry them through a zillion steps of calculation. No human as we know them would be so driven, so it looks like that Simone can't exist as a coherent, caused thing.
But it's very easy and correct to see a high voltage on a wire as a signal which will reliably cause a set of logic gates to carry it through a zillion steps. So that Simone can get to yes without her universe locking up first.
Right. Our basic human intuitions do not grok the power of algorithms.
Disagree. If we allow humans to be deterministic then a "human as we know them" is driven solely by the physical laws of our universe; there is no sense in talking about our emotional motivations until we have decided that we have free will.
I think your argument does assume we have free will.
I'm suggesting that the part of our minds that deals with hypotheticals silently rejects the premise that 'self' is a reliable squiggle controlled component in a deterministic machine.
I'm also saying this is a pretty accurate hardwired assumption about humans, because we do few things with very high reliability.
I don't think I'm assuming anything about free will. I don't think about it much, and I forgot how to dissolve it. I think that's a good thing.
I think your argument assumes "emotional motivations" cannot be reduced to (explained by) the "physical laws of our universe".
On the contrary, he is assuming we do not; he assumes that it is quite impossible that a human being would actually do the necessary work. That's why he said that "Simone can't exist" in this situation.
So his argument is that "a human is not an appropriate tool to do this deterministic thing". So what? Neither is a log flume - but the fact that log flumes can't be used to simulate consciousness doesn't tell us anything about consciousness.