Of course software is physical. It comes in two common forms: electrons stored on silicon wafer and magnetic particles stored on a platter. It also exists in light form (fibre optic transmission) and ink form (but only during the 1980s).
If you think these representations are any different from humans or the mind then you've got a lot of explaining to do.
I really should learn to quit commenting on these things. They take over my entire "thread" page on HN!
You kind of made my point, the software can be represented by electrons, ink, light, gears, switches, marbles, etc. Or it can just be a loose collection of intents in my mind that I haven't quite coded yet, but it is not these things any more than a wave is just a mound of water. The mind is its own idea, so I'm saying that it might not actually exist in a strict sense.
"Then take the universe and grind it down to the finest powder, and sieve it through the finest sieve, and then show me one atom of justice, one molecule of mercy."
-Terry Pratchett
If you think these representations are any different from humans or the mind then you've got a lot of explaining to do.
I want to emphasize that last bit.
I think the last two poll options are equivalent. Either you believe that the mind emerges from demonstrable, physical, and ultimately testable properties, or you just don't know. That doesn't preclude there being "something else" on its own, but the burden is on you to demonstrate what it is that you actually believe. "I don't know, something else which I can't identify" is a position which is frustratingly common in current society but, in my opinion, completely indefensible.
There isn't actually any burden on anybody to prove what they believe. Perhaps if the goal is to win an argument, yes. Probably indefensible to believe a non-physical basis, but then again you have to want to defend your belief, which is again not required.
Ok, fair enough. If the idea is to just state what you believe without further discussion, go nuts.
However, if we're discussing it (and the fact that comments exist for this poll leads me to believe that we are) I would ask if you care whether what you believe is actually true. If so, it's not rude of me to ask you to demonstrate that. If not, that's an indicator for me to run away.
So, long ago, the heart was considered the center of intelligence. It made sense - when you were worried or anxious or happy, you felt something right there.
Then later when medicine was invented, the heart was a pump. It moved, blood flowed, obviously its a pump. Also not quite right - it also measures blood components, gives feedback to and accepts from the brain, has glands and enzyme responses - so lots more than a pump, more of a synthesis organ with many functions.
So now the brain is a computer. See, I was going somewhere with this! And 'consciousness' is just an algorithm. Its obvious, especially to computer programmers.
I think that there is more going on than that. Because when I'm asleep, somebody is not 'at the wheel', and when I'm awake I'm fully present and thinking, and sometimes thinking about thinking.
Behavioral algorithms can simulate this up the wazoo e.g. Watson, and what you have is a puppet, not something that is really thinking or conscious.
Oh, but they say, when we get a computer big enough/complex enough, it will spring into consciousness and then you'll see! Talk about mystical thinking - if a big computer thinks, then a small one thinks but just smaller. And that is clearly not the case - I tried asking my pocket calculator what it was thinking, and it just said 5318008. (joke)
So maybe the answer lies in the electrical state/dynamic wave functions held in place by the brain, or in quantum mechanics, or whatever. But just because I don't choose A or B in the quiz doesn't mean I'm a mystic or anything.
Yeah. My personal, inexpert opinion is that if we are ever able to simulate/generate what appears to be consciousness, it won't be as a result of identifying the appropriate algorithm or whatever - it'll be an emergent property of complex systems comprised of individually comprehensible parts, but the behavior of the whole may well still escape our complete understanding.
I think that still leaves a bit of mystery while being somewhat satisfactory in terms of not requiring something supernatural.
If you think these representations are any different from humans or the mind then you've got a lot of explaining to do.