
ToKCast Ep 59: The Nexus
Apr 23, 2021
A wide-ranging dive into what makes someone a person through evolution, computation, and knowledge creation. It contrasts plant and animal sensing, explains computation and quantum computation, and shows how brains can be simulated. It treats persons as software-like explainers that persist through change and explores multiversal fungibility and the abstract nature of personhood.
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Simulated Brains Count As Persons
- Because the brain is a physical system, in principle a quantum computer can simulate it.
- A simulation of the brain that reproduces its computations would thereby be a person.
Prepare Ethics Before Simulating Minds
- Anticipate moral hazards before building full brain simulations and set ethical safeguards.
- Avoid switching simulations on or off without solutions for consciousness and suffering.
Understanding Is Computation
- Understanding equals a computation: minds create explanations by modeling the world.
- That makes comprehension a physical process implementable by computation.



