Computers do physically self reorganize, the one requirement for a computer is being able to change its structure to multiple physical states.
No, they don’t — not in the sense we are discussing here.
The components of a computer can change their individual, and its overall, energy state (high/low voltage, positive/negative magnetic charge, etc.). These different energetic states are then used to represent models of things (real or imagined).
What they do not do is physically reconfigure themselves in the way the brain does — you won’t find a von Neuman architecture that physically rewires itself.
The map is not the territory — a model of something is not the thing itself.
Also，it’s mathematically Proven that a Turing Machine can simulate an arbitrarily complex physical object.
The idea that a (Universal) Turing Machine may simulate any arbitrarily complex physical object is an instance of the Halting Problem. It may be true and, so far as we can ascertain with the thinking tools available to us, it is. But we may only not be able to see that it is a false premise because the tools we use are flawed — if all you have is a hammer, pretty soon everything starts to look like a nail. It’s equally possible that, one day, we will find something that cannot be modeled with a UTM but the problem is that, until we do, we won’t know that and will, therefore, continue to believe that everything can be — it won’t be our fault that we are wrong … but wrong we will be, nevertheless.
Maths is a language and, like any language, it is capable of describing that for which it provides the components and tools, no more. Like any language there things that it can describe that no other language can but, equally, there are things it cannot describe (C.f. Gödel’s ‘Incompleteness Theorem’, and compare it with the Hopi language, in which there is no word for the colour ‘green’ and its speakers, therefore, neurologically incapable of identifying that colour).
Furthermore, there are untruths that may be told with it. Take a look at the discrepancy between a square (representing the universal set ‘U’) on a graph on which a square is drawn around points (0,0), (0,1), (1,0), (1,1). Draw a line from (0,0) to (1,1). Everything under that line is set A and everything above it is !A. U=A+!A
Now do it in Fuzzy Set theory. Take the same square representing U, draw the same line, under which everything is a member of A. To complete U, however, this is no longer sufficient, as a line must be drawn from (0,1) to (1,0) to account for !A. Now look at the gap in U that is the region covered by neither A nor !A. How can that be? U=A+!A and yet there is a region in U (which is the predefined square) that is neither in A nor in !A. A mathematical impossibility … a ‘lie’.
Take a look at the real world around you, in which it is entirely possible to divide by zero by simply not taking a knife to the cake in the first place. Try to divide by zero in Maths though and all Hell breaks loose.
And the day my bank corrects their error by subtracting the negative account balance by adding the same amount again to my account, I’ll jump for joy. Sadly for me, however, it is pretty much certain that, as far as my bank is concerned, the idea that 0 - -2 is 0, not 4, will persist long after my demise.
Or look at polar coordinates — in which parallel lines may meet. It contradicts Euclidian geometry, yet it is equally true. And, simultaneously, false, because, in the equally true reality of Euclidean geometry, parallel lines may never meet. Both Euclidean and polar geometry are Maths, but they’re different dialects thereof, just like any language has dialects.
Mathematics is not some divine language of the gods extolling the Truth, the whole Truth and nothing but the Truth, it is simply a language with its own, unique, strengths and weaknesses — it is a human construct no more universal than is English … it’s simply a commonly used one (like English is in the international arena).
If you really have evidence that a digital device can not produce consciousness, please share it!
I have no evidence of that, nor did I suggest that were the case.
What I said was that the devices we currently fondly imagine are sufficient to do so are not so … because those who do so have insufficient knowledge of the brain and are limited in their understanding of the mind by that lack of knowledge … and that it will take an altogether different approach (if not actual technology) before this happens as a result of our actions.
That does not mean that such a state of affairs does not already exist elsewhere in the Universe — for all we know, some other intelligent species created yet another intelligent ‘species’ on such a platform. But it will not come about as the result of imagining that the mind is software that runs on the brain’s hardware — because it isn’t and it doesn’t.
The trouble with your syllogistic argument here is that it relies upon my being able to disprove something … which is scientifically nonsensical.
I can no more provide evidence that a digital substrate is incapable of supporting consciousness than I can that God does not exist.
That is not how Science works.
Science works on the basis that either something is proven or the null hypothesis is not disproven, but never on the basis that the absence of evidence is evidence of the absence.
Mathematical proofs do not disprove this principle either. Maths is the language in which a lot of Science is discussed … but is not Science itself — the map is not the territory ¹.
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¹ The difference between the real world phenomenon of Flight and the explanatory model thereof known as Aerodynamics is that birds fly, whilst planes are flown.
