Consciousness is not computation
&gt; So if we accept that qualia exists (which, after all, seems intuitively sensible), we are burdened with the apparently impossible task of explaining how consciousness can be generated by physical processes.<p>No, you don&#x27;t get to just gloss over that. I don&#x27;t think it&#x27;s &quot;intuitively sensible&quot; that &quot;qualia&quot; exist. I don&#x27;t think think it&#x27;s intuitively sensible that they don&#x27;t exist either: the question is ill-defined until it&#x27;s first been established it&#x27;s a well-defined concept that actually means something. And the burden is on you to do that.<p>If you make up a word without requiring it somehow maps to the real world in some way you can prove or disprove anything you like about it -- because you&#x27;ve made up the rules.<p>I can play that game too:<p>1. I define a word &quot;foobles&quot;.<p>2. By definition, I claim, humans have foobles and computers do not.<p>3. I write many long essays pondering the question of where foobles come from, why they exist, and whether or not computers can ever have them. Some people are very impressed when I call this &quot;the hard problem of foobles&quot;.