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Scientific behavior is used as a benchmark to examine the truth status of computationalism (COMP) as a law of nature. A COMP-based artificial scientist is examined from three simple perspectives to see if they shed light on the truth or falsehood of COMP through its ability or otherwise, to deliver authentic original science on the a priori unknown like humans do. The first perspective (A) looks at the handling of ignorance and supports a claim that COMP is "trivially true" or "pragmatically false" in the sense that you can simulate a scientist if you already know everything, which is a state that renders the simulation possible but pointless. The second scenario (B) is more conclusive and unusual in that it reveals that the COMP scientist can never propose/debate that COMP is a law of nature. This marked difference between the human and the artificial scientist in this single, very specific circumstance, means that COMP cannot be true as a general claim. The third scenario (C) examines the artificial scientist's ability to do science on itself/humans to uncover the "law of nature" which results in itself. This scenario reveals that a successful test for scientific behavior by a COMP-based artificial scientist supports a claim that COMP is true. Such a test is quite practical and can be applied to an artificial scientist based on any design principle, not merely COMP. Scenario (C) also reveals a practical example of the COMP scientist's inability to handle informal systems (in the form of liars), which further undermines COMP. Overall, the result is that COMP is false, with certainty in one very specific, critical place. This lends support to the claims (i) that artificial general intelligence will not succeed based on COMP principles, and (ii) computationally enacted abstract models of human cognition will never create a mind.
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Two related and relatively obscure issues in science have eluded empirical tractability. Both can be directly traced to progress in artificial intelligence. The first is scientific proof of consciousness or otherwise in anything. The second is the role of consciousness in intelligent behaviour. This document approaches both issues by exploring the idea of using scientific behaviour self-referentially as a benchmark in an objective test for P-consciousness, which is the relevant critical aspect of consciousness. Scientific behaviour is unique in being both highly formalised and provably critically dependent on the P-consciousness of the primary senses. In the context of the primary senses P-consciousness is literally a formal identity with scientific observation. As such it is intrinsically afforded a status of critical dependency demonstrably no different to any other critical dependency in science, making scientific behaviour ideally suited to a self-referential scientific circumstance. The ‘provability’ derives from the delivery by science of objectively verifiable ‘laws of nature’. By exploiting the critical dependency, an empirical framework is constructed as a refined and specialised version of existing propositions for a ‘test for consciousness’. The specific role of P-consciousness is clarified: it is a human intracranial central nervous system construct that symbolically grounds the scientist in the distal external world, resulting in our ability to recognise, characterise and adapt to distal natural world novelty. It is hoped that in opening a discussion of a novel approach, the artificial intelligence community may eventually find a viable contender for its long overdue scientific basis.