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Re:'Biocomputer' combines lab-grown brain tissue with electr... by anigbrowl on Wednesday December 13, 2023 @04:17PM (#38634249)
Neurons may not 'feel' pain per se, but it's entirely possible that the biological substrate on a chip would experience pain on some subset of the pin inputs, say if it recognized a condition that reliably led to a shutdown and reboot of the chip.

I'm not against this sort of research, but we shouldn't make assumptions about systems that we still understand relatively poorly.

Re:'Biocomputer' combines lab-grown brain tissue with electr... by knodi123 on Wednesday December 13, 2023 @04:25PM (#38634340)
> it's entirely possible that the biological substrate on a chip would experience pain on some subset of the pin inputs

Absolutely, but the guy I responded to suggested that "all physical processes involve a sensory component", which is utter insanity.

Re:'Biocomputer' combines lab-grown brain tissue with electr... by mensetmanusman on Wednesday December 13, 2023 @05:23PM (#38635048)
In quantum mechanics the act of observing always disturbs the observed; it's reasonable to call these disturbances 'senses' in the copenhagen interpretation of reality.
Re:'Biocomputer' combines lab-grown brain tissue with electr... by Bjartr on Wednesday December 13, 2023 @05:58PM (#38635419)
The term "observation" in explaining quantum mechanics is misleading and a layperson analogy, not the underlying reality which is closer to "inter-system interaction" or "interaction between a quantum system and its environment". No conscious observation necessary.
Re:'Biocomputer' combines lab-grown brain tissue with electr... by mensetmanusman on Thursday December 14, 2023 @12:48PM (#38644435)
Interaction is also an analogy for what the mystery really is.