> But even if you crafted an even better model that would fool humans, would it really understand the output it generated, or simply attempt to find the output most likely accepted by the reader? Is this what you would call intelligent behaviour?
I am not sure the distinction you are making is philosophically defensible if you are not religious. Our consciousness is emergent out of physical processes.
> Our consciousness is emergent out of physical processes.
Whether that is true or not is actually irrelevant if you ask me. The real problem with parent's line of thinking is that no reasoning you apply to the computer cannot similarly be applied with exactly the same amount of validity to every person who isn't you. The distinction is therefore arbitrary and useless. If we accept that humans should be treated a certain way because they are conscious, then we must (at least) treat anything that gives the appearance of human-like consciousness with the same reverence.
Well, what if I say that humans have certain parts (subsystems in the brain? Neurons? Idk, just guessing) and that these parts are a necessary condition for the “talking thing” to be conscious?
Also it might not be that I treat a human “with reverence” because I believe he is conscience, but rather because I think he is “like me”, his body is like my body, he has parents like me, he has genes like me and he moves like me.
Your perspective requires a lot of tenuous assumptions though. You do not define 'consciousness' nor 'physical processes' (what underlies each and every process as you recursively examine them?). To claim that consciousness is emergent out of physical processes rather than the other way around (consciousness defining the physical world) requires axioms like that of 'cause and effect' to hold 'true', whatever 'truth' is actually supposed to signify when the physical world itself is not defined. As far as I know, the only things we can possibly 'know' are those things which we perceive, and the only thing which we can know from them for certain is the fact that they are perceived in the first place, whatever that means.
There may be 'science', yet even that is at the very best a hopeful idea that we will continue to perceive the world in some consistent, regular manner as we nudge at it with our imagined limbs. The way we conceive of cause and effect is entirely arbitrary- to consider it 'true' as you seem to, strikes me as almost religious. ;)
Yes, my position involves rejecting so-called "external world skepticism" ie. extreme solipsism. Given that solipsism is unfalsifiable and there is always a risk that solipsism is false, i think it makes sense to act as if it is false given that nothing really matters if it is true. The same is true of the problems you identify with science/induction.
I am not sure the distinction you are making is philosophically defensible if you are not religious. Our consciousness is emergent out of physical processes.