> Why wouldn't an accurately simulated brain be considered a person?
Ah, and here we come to the crux of the matter! What makes a person a person? Is it merely electrochemical activity in a certain type of tissue?
It's important to recognize that this question comes to the border that marks the end of the territory of biology and the beginning of the territory of philosophy. It's possible to charge right through this border (as Stephen Hawking did in his book The Grand Design) but there is a peril in doing so.
> The attempt to fit consciousness into the material world,
> usually by identifying it with activity in the brain, has failed dismally,
> if only because there is no way of accounting for the fact that certain nerve impulses
> are supposed to be conscious (of themselves or of the world)
> while the overwhelming majority (physically essentially the same) are not.
Ah, and here we come to the crux of the matter! What makes a person a person? Is it merely electrochemical activity in a certain type of tissue?
It's important to recognize that this question comes to the border that marks the end of the territory of biology and the beginning of the territory of philosophy. It's possible to charge right through this border (as Stephen Hawking did in his book The Grand Design) but there is a peril in doing so.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/may/27/physic...
> The attempt to fit consciousness into the material world, > usually by identifying it with activity in the brain, has failed dismally, > if only because there is no way of accounting for the fact that certain nerve impulses > are supposed to be conscious (of themselves or of the world) > while the overwhelming majority (physically essentially the same) are not.