Conversations on Consciousness

Sue Explain about the China brain.

Ned OK, the idea is that you could assemble a group of people and have
them communicate by satellite or by cell phone, so that each of them
simulated what was in effect a neuron. They would interact by electronic
means in a way that was like the way that neurons in the brain
interact by electronic means.
I called it the China brain, because I said there are a billion people
in China—not really as many neurons as there are in a brain, but
something approaching that. They together would then control a
body; all these people would be jointly the brain of that body, that
robot. So the idea is that the robot, including its brain, might be functionally
equivalent to a human being, in the sense that there are some
corresponding states that interact with each other in a corresponding
way. The question is whether the robot has phenomenology. Maybe
there’s no phenomenology, nobody home.

Sue Is that what you think?

Ned I don’t say that I know that, because obviously I don’t, and it’s something
for which scientific investigation is required. But if you believe
in a neurological theory of consciousness you’re going to be somewhat
sceptical about whether this thing that is neurologically quite
different from us, so different really in this extreme way, would have
phenomenology. I think only a functionalist or a behaviourist, like
Dennett say, would be sure that it does have phenomenology. So that’s
one kind of zombie, the zombie that’s physically completely different
from us, although functionally similar, with some set of corresponding
states that interact in the same way and produce the same kind
of behavior..... Ned Block



This raises deep questions of metaphysics. What is there in the
world? What are the basic components of the world? In physics
this happens all the time. Nobody tries to explain, say space or time
in terms of something which is more basic than space or time. It’s
the same with mass or charge. They end up taking something as fundamental.
My own view is that to be consistent we have to say the
same thing about consciousness. If it turns out that the facts about
consciousness can’t be derived from the fundamental physical properties
we already have, like space and time and mass and charge, then
the consistent thing to say is, ‘OK, then consciousness isn’t to be
reduced. It’s irreducible. It’s fundamental. It’s a basic feature of the
world.’.....
David Chalmers