This thread is for asking any questions that might seem obvious, tangential, silly or what-have-you. Don't be shy, everyone has holes in their knowledge, though the fewer and the smaller we can make them, the better.
Please be respectful of other people's admitting ignorance and don't mock them for it, as they're doing a noble thing.
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Thanks for the pointer to the zombie sequence. I 've read part of it in the past and did not think it addressed the issue but I will revisit.
Well, the way it shows that you can not get consciousness from syntactic symbol manipulation. And Bayesian update is also a type of syntactic symbol manipulation so I am not clear why you are treating it differently. Are you sure you are not making the assumption that consciousness arises algorithmically to justify your conclusion and thus introduce circularity in your logic?
I don't know. Many people are rejecting the 'Chinese room' argument as naive but I haven't understood why yet so I am honestly open to the possibility that I am missing something.
I repeat: show that none of your neurons have consciousness separate from your own.
Why on Earth would you think Searle's argument shows anything, when you can't establish that you aren't a Chinese Gym? In order to even cast doubt on the idea that neurons are people, don't you need to rely on functionalism or a similar premise?