dumb-but-fast Look Up Tables could be conscious, which is a problem
Sincere question: why would this be a problem?
I mean, I get that LUTs violate our intuitions about what ought to be necessary to get genuine consciousness, but then they also violate my intuitions about what ought to be necessary to get a convincing simulation of it. If I throw out the latter intuitions to accept a convincing LUT, I'm not sure why I shouldn't be willing to throw out the former intuitions as well.
Is there more here than just dueling intuitions?
Sincere question: why would this be a problem?
See my lower bound for consciousness. Lookup tables don't satisfy the lower bound. The lower bound is that point at which Quine's theory of ontological relativity / confirmation holism is demonstrably false, and so "meaning" can exist.
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.