Lets assume that humans are complex molecular machines. That is our bodies obey the laws of physics and are made of atoms that behave in predictable ways.
If we know what we are made of (the molecules and how they are arranged) and how these molecules can be modeled (i.e. quantum mechanics) then it is only a matter of time until an entire human can be modeled on a computer. Once you can model the entire body, then you can have a computer that can pass the Turing test, because it more or less is human.
If humans can be modeled as deterministic systems that follow physical laws, then computers will simulate them at some point in the future.
First, the complexity in the physics/chemistry of our molecular machines is such that "only a matter of time" may extend longer than the time span of our species' existence.
Second, it is completely possibly that we are more than molecular machines. There may be an aspect to our functioning that is beyond the physical. That aspect of our existence may not be possible to replicate.
> There may be an aspect to our functioning that is beyond the physical. That aspect of our existence may not be possible to replicate.
What does "beyond the physical" even mean? I assume you mean something "supernatural," meaning something that is "true/real," yet impossible to study or even verify empirically.
Beyond the physical meaning properties that are unable to be replicated by manipulating physical atoms and molecules. I wouldn't call them "supernatural" at all because (assuming they do exist) they are absolutely a natural and even necessary part of life.
I would assume they would be possible to verify in some way once we've reached the stage where hard AI is nearly achieved.
You imply that atoms and molecules are elementary particles, which we already know to not be the case. It's possible that quantum effects, which seem to be probabilistic (depending on your interpretation), are vital for human intelligence. However, that seems fairly unlikely. While it's still mostly speculation, most experts tend to think that classical mechanics are sufficient to explain the functions of the human brain, which would imply that an identical arrangement of atoms/molecules would also be an intelligent system, and a good computer simulation (which is currently still unfeasible) of the atoms/molecules would also be an intelligent system.
The problem here is that you are being so vague that your comment can really only be understood if actually are talking about something 'supernatural'.
Biology is really not much more than a self-replicating subset of chemistry. Without evidence to suggest something sort of psuedo-supernatural difference between the simplest of single cell organisms and homo sapiens, I think the only reasonable position is that whatever it is that "preforms" intelligence falls under the realm of the physical sciences.
Until we acquire evidence to suggest otherwise, it is silly to assume anything else.
I agree, that is a very reasonable position. But we are still a long way from proving the position. And until the position has been demonstrated true, then there is room for speculation. Which is what longbets is all about.
The burden of proof is definitely on anybody asserting that intelligence isn't a physical phenomenon. We have no evidence to suggest that it isn't, but a hell of a lot to suggest that it is.
Longbets is fine, but such unfounded speculation doesn't have much use in serious conversation.
"proving the position proving the position"
It seems like you might be misunderstanding the role of science.
There are completely natural phenomena that have been studied and evaluated for centuries and still have no concrete explanation. We may not have sufficient time to answer some of these questions, and we may also reach a limit to how much we can understand and discover about ourselves.
Again, you are speaking in terms that make it difficult to extract your meaning, so correct me if I have failed to understand what you are trying to say.
In particular I would be interested to hear what some of these phenomena are. See, the lack of a "concrete explanation" isn't really a useful thing to say about something. We don't yet have anything that could be called a "concrete explanation" of even things like gravity. What we do have are theories that allow us to make useful predictions about how gravity will effect things. Imperfect as those, like all, theories are, we've still put stuff on other planets with them.
There certainly are many "open problems" in science, but to my knowledge we have yet to ever encounter anything that is fundamentally beyond the grasp of the physical sciences. Take for example the Coronal Heating Problem: On the surface it seems to violate the 2nd law of thermodynamics (which is some rather heavy shit...) but even in extreme cases like that science solders on. There are numerous hypothesis that have been proposed to explain it, and over time our understanding of it will only become more robust.
Anyway: To address this particular concern I'd like to say that until we have any strong evidence to suggest that humans possess a more powerful model of computation than we already regularly reason about, we have to assume that they do not.
Well let's take your example of gravity. We know a lot about it. Like you said, we've put stuff on other planets. And we have satellites in orbit. Amazing. But even with that we're still theorizing about exactly how it works. And we definitely can't recreate it.
It's possible that there are hard limitations on our ability to recreate some of the very fundamental phenomena we experience in everyday life. Intelligence may be among them.
The only theoretical hard limit that makes sense is a limit on information. If you can't transmit information from A to B faster than C, then yes you've got a hard limit.
Every other natural phenomenon that doesn't obscure infromation that way can be figured out. There may of course be soft limits like it taking a billion years to figure out.
Serendipitously to you mentioning this now, only a couple of weeks ago they announced they have a good candidate for the explanation, which is Type II spicules.
If we know what we are made of (the molecules and how they are arranged) and how these molecules can be modeled (i.e. quantum mechanics) then it is only a matter of time until an entire human can be modeled on a computer. Once you can model the entire body, then you can have a computer that can pass the Turing test, because it more or less is human.
If humans can be modeled as deterministic systems that follow physical laws, then computers will simulate them at some point in the future.