"Only a Meat Machine can be Conscious: maybe"
Abstract: We are all familiar with the point that a simulation of a rainstorm is not wet. We need a distinction between simulation and implementation of a computational system. But what is an implementation of a computational system? Is it…just more computation? Or is some kind of wet-ware required? This talk will argue that wet-ware may be important and how we could find out whether it is. One approach is to consider the evolution of the electrochemical processing involved in neural systems in which an electrical pulse propagates down an axon triggering the release of chemicals that in turn trigger further electrical pulses in other neurons. At the dawn of multicellular animals, pure chemical signaling was used in placozoans whereas ctenophores (comb jellies) seem to have used pure electrical neuronal systems (and sponges have no nervous systems at all). Only electrochemical control systems led to thinking and feeling organisms, suggesting the possibility that electrochemical processing may be essential to our conscious lives.
Ned Block, Silver Professor of Philosophy (with secondary appointments in Psychology and Neural Science) at New York University. He works in philosophy of perception and foundations of neuroscience and cognitive science.
Zoom link: https://osu.zoom.us/j/5209052369?pwd=YUNSUm9sM0FYU0syUGhSTWR0ZTZYdz09
