Suppose this was all that existed of you, and your real brain never had existed. Would that mean that you never existed as a conscious being, despite all your thoughts and utterances still being a part of the world?
I think whether my thoughts and utterances would come together with consciousness would strictly depend on how they are produced. I agree they could be reproduced at the computational (input-to-output) level with an arbitrarily high precision with an infinitely powerful digital computer (see Marr’s levels of analysis). However, I do not see that as sufficient (or necessary) for consciousness. An infinitely large lookup table can also reproduce human behaviour at the computational level with an arbitrarily high precision, and I consider it has the least consciousness possible (practically 0). I believe consciousness depends on algorithms and implementation, not on the input-to-output mapping. This matters to me because simple logical operations written out by hand with pen and paper can only reproduce the behaviour of humans at the input-to-output level, not at the algorithmic or implementation level. In contrast, they can reproduce the behaviour of digital computers at the computational and algorithmic level. So my belief that they cannot be conscious makes me very sceptical about digital consciousness without causing a conflict with my belief in human consciousness.
I think whether my thoughts and utterances would come together with consciousness would strictly depend on how they are produced. I agree they could be reproduced at the computational (input-to-output) level with an arbitrarily high precision with an infinitely powerful digital computer (see Marr’s levels of analysis). However, I do not see that as sufficient (or necessary) for consciousness. An infinitely large lookup table can also reproduce human behaviour at the computational level with an arbitrarily high precision, and I consider it has the least consciousness possible (practically 0). I believe consciousness depends on algorithms and implementation, not on the input-to-output mapping. This matters to me because simple logical operations written out by hand with pen and paper can only reproduce the behaviour of humans at the input-to-output level, not at the algorithmic or implementation level. In contrast, they can reproduce the behaviour of digital computers at the computational and algorithmic level. So my belief that they cannot be conscious makes me very sceptical about digital consciousness without causing a conflict with my belief in human consciousness.