> It mistakes "a thing that is in some superficial respects the same" for "a thing is in every externally observable respect the same
So does all this talk about computers being "the same" if they can, given access to sufficient human-generated inputs, produce similar strings of Chinese characters to those a conscious Chinese person might do.
If you're not stuck behind a WeChat prompts it's trivially externally observable that a big silicon box which outputs Chinese characters and an agglomeration of cells which walks, eats, makes funny faces and reproduces are dissimilar in most respects (the machine might generate a subset of human outputs which is consistently convincingly human-like, but it's trivially shown that it runs different operations on different hardware at a different speed, requires different inputs to function effectively, and it's highly probable it doesn't devote clock cycles to dreaming about the physical and hormonal release of mating with other computers.
Something which in every observable respect is the same as me isn't a computer, it's me (or perhaps a clone or twin). A computer which can produce text outputs indistinguishable from mine is a very impressive trick indeed, but trust me, my sister will spot the difference straight away when she tries to give it an EEG scan!
I do think you're on to something here: a lot of what we feel is embedded in our bodies.
So imagine we put your brain in a vat; we'll give you a webcam and a microphone for input, and for output -- ah, sorry, budget constraints, just an old printer. You visualize typing on a keyboard in your mind's eye and the characters are tapped out irl on a long scrolling sheet of paper.
Would you still feel? Would you still feel like you?
I'd guess yes and only sort of, respectively. Perhaps you wouldn't be as interested in sex (or maybe it would depend on what mix of hormones the vat was feeding you).
I think we can safely say your sister wouldn't immediately recognize you, though. But given some quality time QA, I think she's end up concluding you were still you, and more than just a parlor trick.
But what do you think? Is it you? If it is, it doesn't seem THAT different from the computer program you, does it?
So does all this talk about computers being "the same" if they can, given access to sufficient human-generated inputs, produce similar strings of Chinese characters to those a conscious Chinese person might do.
If you're not stuck behind a WeChat prompts it's trivially externally observable that a big silicon box which outputs Chinese characters and an agglomeration of cells which walks, eats, makes funny faces and reproduces are dissimilar in most respects (the machine might generate a subset of human outputs which is consistently convincingly human-like, but it's trivially shown that it runs different operations on different hardware at a different speed, requires different inputs to function effectively, and it's highly probable it doesn't devote clock cycles to dreaming about the physical and hormonal release of mating with other computers.
Something which in every observable respect is the same as me isn't a computer, it's me (or perhaps a clone or twin). A computer which can produce text outputs indistinguishable from mine is a very impressive trick indeed, but trust me, my sister will spot the difference straight away when she tries to give it an EEG scan!