Michael Pollan

You can run the same program on any number of different computers that are essentially interchangeable.

In the brain, there is no distinction between hardware and software.

Every memory you have is a physical pattern of connections between neurons.

Every experience you have physically changes your brain.

Your brain is different than mine because you had a different experience growing up.

So the idea that you could simply interchange this substrate and run consciousness on it fails for that reason.

But I think the bigger problem I have with it is that, you know, it's true that simulated thought, such as a computer can handle, is real thought.

But it isn't clear that simulated feeling is ever going to be real feeling.

Right.

And it appears the science that I look at in some depth here suggests that feelings are the origin of consciousness.

It doesn't begin with thought.

It begins with the body talking to the brain about what's going right or what's going wrong.

And feelings are very different than thoughts.

They have a different kind of weight.

And it's hard to imagine computers ever feeling in a meaningful way.

They might be able to simulate it.

But if you think about it, your feelings are very tied to your vulnerability, to your having a body that can be hurt.

to the ability to suffer, and perhaps your mortality.

So I think that any feelings that a chatbot reports will be weightless, meaningless, because they don't have bodies.

They can't suffer.