Newton did orbit the sun, while riding the Earth
And he had no particular qualia that would distinguish that from any of a billion other arrangements.
do you really mean to argue that the existence of Newton's equations is completely uncorrelated with the fact Newton lived in a (to the limits of his understanding) Newtonian universe?
No, I mean to argue that the existence of Newton's equations is completely uncorrelated with whether Newton experienced any qualia. A properly-designed curve-fitting algorithm, given the right data, could produce them as well; there is no evidence of consciousness (at least distinct from computation) as a result.
Occam's razor can be useful there, I think, until we have enough understanding of neuroscience to be able to tell between a brain doing mimicry, and a brain doing an honest and lucid self-evaluation.
Aliens arrive to visit Earth. Their knowledge of their own neural architecture is basically useless when evaluating ours. How do they determine that humans "actually experience" qualia, rather than humans simulating the results of experience of qualia as a result of evolution?
The Occam's Razor result that "they act in a manner consistent with having qualia, therefore they probably experience qualia, therefore they are probably conscious" is immediately displaced by the Occam's Razor result that "they act in a manner consistent with being conscious, therefore they probably are conscious". The qualia aren't necessary, and therefore drop out of the axiomization of a theory of consciousness.
No, I mean to argue that the existence of Newton's equations is completely uncorrelated with whether Newton experienced any qualia
You misunderstood my argument. I wasn't talking about qualia when I talked about Newton, I was talking about gravity, another phenomenon. Newton was affected by gravity -- this was highly correlated with the fact he talked about gravity. We talk about qualia -- this is therefore evidence in favour of us being affected by qualia.
...How do they determine that humans "actually experience" qualia, rather than humans simu
This post is a followup to "We are not living in a simulation" and intended to help me (and you) better understand the claims of those who took a computationalist position in that thread. The questions below are aimed at you if you think the following statement both a) makes sense, and b) is true:
"Consciousness is really just computation"
I've made it no secret that I think this statement is hogwash, but I've done my best to make these questions as non-leading as possible: you should be able to answer them without having to dismantle them first. Of course, I could be wrong, and "the question is confused" is always a valid answer. So is "I don't know".
a) Something that an abstract machine does, as in "No oracle Turing machine can compute a decision to its own halting problem"?
b) Something that a concrete machine does, as in "My calculator computed 2+2"?
c) Or, is this distinction nonsensical or irrelevant?
ETA: By the way, I probably won't engage right away with individual commenters on this thread except to answer requests for clarification. In a few days I'll write another post analyzing the points that are brought up.