With the browser example, at no level of abstraction does there exist any ambiguity. "Emergent" in that framing simply means we can explain abstracted behaviors in terms of other abstractions. But if you wanted you could drill down to the particle physics and have a complete, rational explanation of the system.

Not so with consciousness, and thus the "hard problem"

Well, the list of differences between the two is enormous. As the article discusses, some of those differences include embodiment, emotions and moods. So perhaps the “hard problem” is not a philosophical one but a question of detailed knowledge: if we had the ability to drill down to the underlying particle physics of bodies, emotions and moods, plus all the other things that comprise our animal natures, then perhaps the problem would be solved.

To put this another way: perhaps the issue with many approaches to understanding consciousness is that it assumes our animal nature doesn’t matter and that conscious minds can exist abstractly, or even be modelled in silicon. But maybe they can’t be, and so for us to truly understand consciousness we will need to truly understand the body, which we are very far away from.

To sum this up: consciousness, in this view, is not an emergent property of complex systems. Rather it is a fundamental property of animals.

(It also helps that I know how to program computers and don't view that activity as bringing consciousness in the world. I have children, however, so it turns out that I am — with some help — also able to bring consciousness into the world. The former activity I am both able to do and fully understand, while the latter I am clearly able to do, but don't at all understand.)

I recognize this point of view isn't popular among a lot of technical folks. I get it, I was there once too, but I've come around to a new appreciation for our animal nature. This question — how do you know what is conscious? — is very similar to questions like, "how do you know that that dog is afraid?" The short answer to that question is, "because we are kin". Which is an explanation I find much more rich and satisfying than reductionism.

At best, you can put forward a thought experiment that starts with, "Suppose there are beings which are not animals but which are nonetheless conscious." I'm questioning the premise of that thought experiment, however, because so far as we can tell, there is no such thing.

In other words, computers are not conscious because they are not animals.

This may seem like circular reasoning, but not if you take the view that consciousness is a fundamental property of animals as opposed to an emergent property of complex systems.

This creates a blind spot where an area of non-knowledge is assumed to be known about, and rejected out of hand. I have to point out that taking the view that consciousness is a property of animals does not exclude non-animals having it.

Even then, there will be a tussle over the exact line of what qualifies as an animal for the purpose of consciousness, resulting in the need to answer the same generalizations (e.g. intention, mood, emotion) that would allow yet undiscovered but plausible forms of life to qualify as conscious.

I’ve long been of the common-in-tech-circles belief that at some point in the future we will be able to create intelligent, conscious machines. Where my view on this fascinating issue is shifting is that I’m much less convinced that our animal nature is immaterial to this task.

In any case this has been a fascinating and insightful conversation and I appreciate the opportunity to have it with you and the other commenters here.

How is a world where your will is decided by quarks randomly zagging instead of zigging any more open to free will than a deterministic world?

If after the transition is complete we determine/decide they aren't conscious, then we have to argue about at what point the 'hybrid' brain ceases to manifest consciousness, and why. Maybe the organic parts would start to change their prior functionality in response to the synthesized parts... but that would suggest we just didn't have a complete enough model of the neuron and we're back to square one. Once that model is complete, there should by definition be no problem, unless you want to argue it can never be complete, for which you then need evidence to convince everyone.

I say it's worth continued study.

Most, if not all, animals are much more complex than computers.

Or at the very least, it's a fundamental property of the particular kinds of physical systems that animals happen to be, and without understand what that is, we have no hope of replicating consciousness in any non-animal.

This makes sense to me, because consciousness seems to be a question related to brains, which are part of animals, so a really great way to confuse yourself would be to abstract the entire question of consciousness away from the life sciences and then wonder why you're so confused.

Yes, exactly. Which is a direct challenge to transhumanism because it means that maybe it actually won't be possible to achieve immortality via brain upload, or build general AI (without first solving the life science "problem", i.e. building an artificial body), and so on.

Doubtful since the medium of our thought is clear to us but impossible to share and difficult to describe.

It is but a first step, and particle physics/C is the lowest level, we have to understand the complex code written with them and the emergent phenomena.

Would a computer form with enough time and without consciousness from random interactions and the precise laws of the universe?

As an aside, I think you have to be a bit arrogant or closed minded to assert that they actually can see the problem. I really don't think my wife is lying or being nefarious when she says she doesn't see a problem. I trust her and others when they say they don't see a problem.

Earlier, in the cell that avoids the chemical.