Quote Originally Posted by RedfishBluefish View Post
And then we reach the question of what distinguishes something shaped like a neuron from a CPU, in any way that has a relation to "consciousness"...
Well, a CPU is centralized and it does very basic computation. Neither a brain nor a neuron compute things or work on a digital foundation. I have no clue how CPUs work though, but I'm pretty certain that it can be explained by one of those diagrams that have 50 boxes in it and 2000 lines and arrows that are friggin confusing. But I guess it's pretty different from a biochemical neural network.

Quote Originally Posted by ClassyElf View Post
Our brain is organized in a way that is equal to that artificial neural network. I don't see why it matters that a CPU is doing the processing of the data.
Well, because "data" as such I see as objectively non-existent. Using "data" to model the brain might be fairly accurate, but it's still just a model. The brain doesn't work in terms of "data", unless you interpret it as such. The whole thing is more of a process as a whole than a process that uses an "object" (data).

A better way to look at an artificial neural network program is to see the CPU of the computer as a heart that is just keeping the program alive. When you go all the way from CPU and RAM to the actual program, memory and CPU power has been abstracted so much that the hardware has absolutely nothing to do with the function of the Artificial Neural Network(unless the network is programmed in a low level language).
Yes, I know this. But again, I don't see a "program" as something that exists anywhere else but in social construction. I don't think that hardware can ever have nothing to with consciousness. Sure, software might use neural networks but that doesn't change anything at all about the actual state of things which is the same ole extremely basic digital computations in the CPU that are used for any other type of software.
I.e. software can't be conscious, only matter can.

If you argue that a "program" can be alive and/or conscious, you might as well argue that a book without a human is actually more than ink on paper... that the information is floating around in some universal off. Or that Super Mario actually exists somewhere some time if I pop the sucker into my SNES.