Computational Implementation of Machine Consciousness and Its Constraints
Within the computational functionalist framework, the possibility of machine consciousness is closely tied to the manner of computational implementation. Currently, discussions on computational implementation and its constraints are increasingly becoming a prominent topic. This paper primarily examines two distinct approaches with varying levels of constraint strength: the heavy-constraint approach, represented by implementationalism, which advocates for imposing substantive constraints on computational implementation to capture the necessary conditions for consciousness; and the light-constraint approach, which proposes minimal constraints aimed to preclude computational triviality arguments, thereby committing to a mechanistic account of computational implementation. Based on a comparative analysis of these two approaches, this paper advocates for adopting the mechanistic account of computational implementation as a foundational hypothesis, upon which substantive constraints on computational implementation should be imposed.
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