Re: cognitive != observable?

There's a simple and straightforward logical proof as to why macroscopic
intelligence cannot possess subjective experience.

Posit that one builds and programs a sufficiently complex computer to
behave, for all appearances, sentient. One then asks the machine if it
experiences qualia.

If the machine answers "Yes", then we can examine a recording of its runtime
execution and trace the complete chain of events that led it to say Yes. And
none of those events will be special in the slightest regard. There is no
qualia causing the machine to say Yes, merely a chain of unspecial
mechanical events strung together. Not only was the machine mistaken to say
Yes, but we can even explain why it was mistaken.

If we want to argue that we must consider the environment as part of the
machine's ability to be conscious, then what we are admitting is that it
can't be conscious without other preexisting conscious entities -- namely
people -- interacting with it. But that explains nothing since it doesn't
explain why we are conscious. If we think that multiple such machines
interacting together would make each other conscious, then no, because that
merely resizes the problem upward and only makes the machine bigger. We can
still trace the cause of any qualia affirmation.

The only macroscopic systems that offer emergent effects beyond those of
chemistry are living organisms. In fact, this is a good definition of
life -- any macroscopic entity that, when aggregated, produces higher-order
emergent effects (such as social systems, morality, etc.). And tellingly
enough, the one key distinction between life and machine is that living
things are built with molecular-sized components. And since this is one
aspect of construction we have not yet attempted in a signficant way with
machines, it is reasonable to seriously consider that our answers will be
found there.

If quantum computation so far looks stale (a mere scaling of traditional
computing ability), I can only speculate that we have just begun to explore
the possibilities, and that more should be forthcoming. Materials
scientists, for example, admit that they still have much to learn to explain
the basic properties of matter at the atomic and molecular scale.

Ray