Engineer's Case Against Computationalism: Consciousness May Depend on Specific Brain Physics
pwlot · x · 2026-10-21
The author criticizes functionalists/computationalists for ignoring physics — even yottaflops of compute won't magically instantiate physical processes. Based on his research, he argues consciousness is likely "in re" — inherent in some subset of the physics the (biological) brain uses.
His engineering approach: to build a conscious device, start by replicating the necessary and sufficient parts of what the brain does, which makes anesthesia mechanisms, brain damage cases and disorders of consciousness highly informative data sources. In a reply he adds: the conservative position is that at least some physics matters, while "consciousness can just be digital" requires more assumptions — though carbon or biology itself is unlikely to be necessary.
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