> Or to put it another way, a program which "precisely emulates the behavior of gold" doesnt turn machine into gold.
> A program which "precisely emulates the behavior of digestion" does not digest pizza.
> A program which "precisely emulates the behavior of" consciousness isnt conscious.
If my goal is probing the behavior of gold, I don't care if it's real or emulated.
If my goal is having a list of chemicals pizza turns into, I don't care if the digestion is real or emulated.
If my goal is having a conversation, I don't care if they're a p-zombie.
Tell me if I'm missing anything here:
Either a computer can perfectly imitate a neuron's behavior, or it can't.
If it can, then a giant computer should be able to make either a conscious being or a P-zombie. (Do you make a distinction there? If you do, can you justify it?)
If you say it can't, then I accuse you of magical thinking. There is no evidence of physical interactions that cannot be emulated.
> To speak as if the mind could be abstracted enough to a description that may be realized in silicon is to believe in an almost magical power of electric.
Here's the thing. The idea of emulating a person does not depend on abstracting the mind. The 'proof of concept' is just building a computer so big that you emulate an entire nervous system, fully intact, every single atom.