Mind Over Matter?

[The Grand Nudger]

A designation as a comp system, or a description of a comp systems limitations and abilities by reference to the individual processing units is not defined by it's usefulness - but by it's ability.  If you can make an and gate out of that rock, alone....even if neither I nor the rock have any use for an and gate...it's still capable, it's still an and gate.  

So, supposing neither of us could find a way to make a rock meet the minimum requirements for a comp system - that explains fairly handily why a rock cant comp (regardless of that rocks utility).  That's why, in comp mind...no one expects a rock to have a non-zero amount of mind.  It's not about what a comp system could be used for, it;s usefulness - simply whether or not it -can- do comp.  A rock can't, btw, which is why we don't make computers out of a rock.  

It's demonstrable that some systems meet your definition of computation. However, it is not demonstrated that simpler systems don't also produce simple minds,

Simpler systems may not meet the requirements of a comp system.  Transmission doesn't, a processor doesn't.  Similarly, -if- mind is comp, simpler comp systems may not meet the requirements of mind.

or that processing complexity of a particular type leads to the actual experience of qualia outside the context of an organic brain, rather than a machine which behaves AS THOUGH it experiences qualia.

How could we tell the difference?  Are you sure there is a difference?  How could you demonstrate that this were so?  Do you wish for me to extend the courtesy of acceptence to you..that you experience qualia...based upon your behaviors - and explicitly by their consistency with my own experience, but balk at the notion of extending it to a machine that exhibited identical behaviors - described an identical experience equally consistent with my own? I have no logical grounds from which to do so..and neither do you. Neither of our positions lead to any conclusion that an artificial mind is or should be any less "mind" than our own. I don't think that you're being consistent.

If all is mind..then an artificial mind is mind, is it not? Why do you expect the artificial mind to be different from your own? Why is it a trick when they do it..but the real deal when you do it?

It's conceivable that at some point towards the end of my lifetime we may be able to build comp systems to a scale and magnitude commensurate with the scale and magnitude of a human brain (I think I did the math once, in a thread...projected the year that this might be possible) and it;s conceivable that these systems could "trick me" - to use your flavor- into thinking they were sentient. After all, we've already built systems that can "trick" some. Just as further elaboration of the above...the day a rock tricks me into thinking it has even a non-zero amount of mind is the day I check myself into a facility.

However, I want you to refine what processing is,

I told you that you could ask this question as often as you'd like...and that the answer would remain the same. hanging or altering the definition as we go along would remove it's utility as an indicator...don't you think?

 what kind produces mind,

I don't know - off the cuff...I'd say an -incredibly- robust kind...orders of magnitude or scale greater than what we find in a modern PC. There may be other ways, as well. NN proponents make a decent claim as well.

how would we use this idea to locate systems outside of our experiences on Earth (life + computers) which definitely had minds?

Not sure if I understand the question?   Without specifics on what this extra-terrestrial thing is I wouldn't know how to begin to answer that.  Where is it, what is it made of, what is it doing?