I'm having trouble understanding, or perhaps, accepting, your point of view. When you say "It’s physical properties would be emulated in software", what really happens is still electrical signals flowing between transistors. "Software" is a concept - it does not exist in a physical world - it's our interpretation of the physical processes that happen when we apply voltage to transistors. I'm not 100% sure, but I think that consciousness might similarly be a concept - "our" interpretation of what is going on between our biological neurons. Note I put "our" in quotes, because it's self-referential here, and that's why I'm not 100% sure. But if we get back to my 3 neuron scenario, the third neuron which is emulated by the external system has not disappeared into the "software". It's still a physical device, which functions in a physical world, and is part of the original brain, despite the fact that it is now physically different from the original biological neuron it has replaced. It still produces (relays) the same signals towards the original two neurons, but it does not compute those signals. Both the inputs and outputs of this new proxy neuron are different, because it has to communicate with the external system. The two original neurons still communicate with a physical device, not with some abstract software entity.
However, if we look at consciousness differently - as something that is purely in the signals and not in the physical devices carrying the signals, then it changes the perspective. In that case it's harder for me to imagine the effect of extending computational signals into the cloud, because I'm not sure if the external signals become an extension of the original consciousness, or if they become more like sensory inputs to the local brain - but then the local brain becomes smaller? It's hard for me to comprehend this perspective.
>"Software" is a concept - it does not exist in a physical world - it's our interpretation of the physical processes that happen when we apply voltage to transistors.
Not exactly. Software is still a physical thing, in that it is a specific configuration of transistors, or disk magnetization, etc. An emulation is a specific configuration of those transistors to replicate how the original object behaves according to physics.
> Both the inputs and outputs of this new proxy neuron are different, because it has to communicate with the external system. The two original neurons still communicate with a physical device, not with some abstract software entity.
They do only interact with the software indirectly, but if it is properly emulated, it will behave in the exact same way. To simplify even more than a 3 neuron system, I want to talk about logic gates. As I’m sure you know, logic gates are the basic building block of a computer that perform simple operations like AND, NOT, OR. Well, you can build mechanical version, like this [1] one with marbles. So you can build a super simple computer using marbles and physical gates. Now what if you build a machine that would input and output marbles according to software emulation of a physical gate and a falling marble? Even though the physical logic gates connected to it would be interacting with a complex physical computer, not the abstract software entity, the results would be identical. If you built a computer with half physical logic gates and half marble input/output machines controlled by abstracted emulated logic gates, the computer would still function the same. I think that if you did it with neurons, the brain would function the same.
It seems to me that neurons are biological variations of logic gates. They receive electrochemical input based on a limited number of options, and based on physical differences in how the neuron is wired and what input it receives, the neuron produces and output based on a limited number of options. We have seen through many medical cases that every part of your personality can be changed by physical changes to your brain, either injury, disease, or surgery. There is no core “you” separate from the interaction of 100 billion neurons. So to me, if half those neurons are actually a software “abstraction”, I don’t see why my subjective experience would be any different.
However, if we look at consciousness differently - as something that is purely in the signals and not in the physical devices carrying the signals, then it changes the perspective. In that case it's harder for me to imagine the effect of extending computational signals into the cloud, because I'm not sure if the external signals become an extension of the original consciousness, or if they become more like sensory inputs to the local brain - but then the local brain becomes smaller? It's hard for me to comprehend this perspective.