Why Can't a Computer Feel the Blue of the Ocean?

 

A Thought Experiment

Imagine one billion people, each holding a coin.

If the heads side is facing up, we will consider it to represent a 1. If the tails side is facing up, it represents a 0.

Now imagine all these people flipping their coins, one side and then the other, in some coordinated sequence. If we could observe all the coins at once, we would see an enormous stream of zeros and ones constantly changing over time.

Now imagine that each person flips their coin in perfect synchrony with the firing of a particular neuron in a human brain — while that person is looking at the surface of the ocean on a clear, sunny day.

And imagine that every neuron has its "own" person, and therefore its "own" coin.

Would the coins somehow feel the blue of the ocean in the same way that you do?

Replace the coins with bits in an artificial neural network, and you get essentially the same situation.

Replace the coins with living neurons, and you still get the same situation.

If consciousness can be explained entirely by the activity of neurons, then something seems to be missing from this explanation.

Color, taste, sound, smell, the sensation of heat and cold — all of these seem to be something more than mere information.

A computer can simulate a living neural network and produce similar responses to stimuli. It can recognize an image, a sound, speech, or even a smell. It can analyze language and understand the meaning of a sentence.

And yet, it still does not see the color blue.

Nor can it hear the voice it has recognized.

Something is still missing.