And how about you make the case for silicon becoming self aware or having subjective experience without descending into hand wavy nonsense?
Primates, which are very similar to us, do not have a comparable subjective experience. We know that because we can communicate with them and they don't have that much to say.
There are also brains in other animals that share a lot of similarities and are larger than ours.
Yet no beings (that's were aware of) have a subjective experience as rich as humans or can self-referentially communicate about that experience.
But turn up the clock speed on my gaming rig far enough and I get to debate the meaning of existence with it?
You have to ignore so much that is obvious to come to a reductive, materialistic conclusion like that.
[Edit]
Not sure if it's worth adding this but I do think we can build a computer that passes the Turing test. I also believe (sooner rather than later) we'll have a Siri-like AI that will provide enough companionship that a relationship can be formed with it.
We could even teach that AI to discuss subjective experience in a believable way.
Primates, which are very similar to us, do not have a comparable subjective experience. We know that because we can communicate with them and they don't have that much to say.
There are also brains in other animals that share a lot of similarities and are larger than ours.
Yet no beings (that's were aware of) have a subjective experience as rich as humans or can self-referentially communicate about that experience.
But turn up the clock speed on my gaming rig far enough and I get to debate the meaning of existence with it?
You have to ignore so much that is obvious to come to a reductive, materialistic conclusion like that.
[Edit]
Not sure if it's worth adding this but I do think we can build a computer that passes the Turing test. I also believe (sooner rather than later) we'll have a Siri-like AI that will provide enough companionship that a relationship can be formed with it.
We could even teach that AI to discuss subjective experience in a believable way.