Both you and the parent have assumed without evidence that the mind operates by local physical laws. There is certainly no evidence to the contrary, but an absence of evidence is not evidence.

Religions might be right and the mind is actually the soul.

Or we could all be characters in a virtual world "played" by beings operating us. This world could be an elaborate RPG.

Or something else we haven't figured out yet.

So don't confuse your belief with proof. Your argument has demonstrated nothing except a failure of imagination.

There are no proofs outside pure mathematics; science works based on justifiable beliefs. Absence of evidence is evidence of absence; we don't need to prove unicorns don't exist to ignore their potential existence in our model of the universe. The null hypothesis is that brains are not magic.

I disagree, though not with absolute confidence. Incidentally, i love how fast AI discussion degrade into existentialism.

Even if minds need unknown 'laws' emerging from dualistic nature of existence, they still exist.

Whether we are human beings in a world that is as it seems, characters in an RPG game, brains in a vat, souls tortured by a demon, artificial minds somewhere in a cascade of simulations or dreaming Hindu gods, we are (or rather I am) still minds under the des cartes definition of a mind and that mind exists.

As for not confusing proof with belief… Occams razor has value. Even if the religious view of souls or such is possible, it is not based on any knowledge or information. It's made up. It has a kind of a longshot chance of being correct in the same way early philosophical claims that matter is made up of wind, fire, earth and water were had a longshot chance of being correct.

In any case, minds seem to have a lot to do with brains and brains are nice squishy physical things that can be prodded and examined and haven't yet been seen to do stuff that is impossible in a material universe.

Taking that to its argument ad extremum conclusion: The universe exists therefore we can build one.

It's quite possible that we can't engineer a computer that does the same thing as the human mind because of our own limitations - the primary one being time.

That's no reason not to try though.

Hehe. A few of differences (:

*We can build one" is not necessarily the conclusion unless we're accepting pretty abstract use of the terms we and can.

To build a universe inside this universe, universes must be capable of containing universes. To build one outside it, stuff must be capable of existing outside of it. OTOH, it seems like multiple minds can and do exist. It gets pretty loopy (and awesome) if we keep going down this rabbit hole.

The statement is intentionally tautological, or very very close to it. If minds exist then minds exist so there's no point in arguing that they can't exist.

I really wish Douglas Adams or Alan Watts or one of those guys would jump in this thread and explain.