This is a copy/paste of my old comment here: #864172 and here: #863850

Currently, we can prove with quantitative evidence that a neural-network can form at least the basics of intelligence. The more neurons in the network, the more intelligent and sentient-like the entity will seem.

Humans are (roughly) at the top of the list of animals for their neuron count: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_animals_by_number_of_neurons There are a few animals with neuron counts similar to ours, and I believe those animals could do everything a human could do and are every bit as sentient as we are.

In the list I linked, you see elephants are one of the only creatures with a higher neuron count than humans. Most likely, they have the mental capacity to build cars, planes, and eventually travel the stars. However, they lack other important biological features, unrelated to intelligence, that prevent them from doing so. For example, their size and the fact they have no hands.... makes it hard to create agricultural tools, or type on a keyboard.

So, yes, cetaceans and squirrels are sentient and intelligent. But their low neuron count make them less intelligent and less sentient. I believe intelligence and sentience scale exponentially with neuron count. As long as there are at least 2 neurons present, intelligence and sentience exists... albeit not to a significant degree. Modern day AI's have the neuron count of something like a dog probably. Would have to look into it more to compare them.

Nature is full of examples of many small things working together to create something which appears completely different. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/properties-emergent/ It seems crazy that large organisms are made up of billions of small, independent cells. Such a thing would seem supernatural to the untrained eye. But it's just mathematical induction. If a simple eukaryote can combine four cells together in order to create something "greater", then why not combine 8 cells? 16... 32..... 512.... 1 Billion.

Google AI tells me that the average human body contains between 30 to 37 trillion cells. Tiny, individual things. By combining them together, the (seemingly supernatural) properties of animal and plant life emerges. We can use induction-like mathematics to prove that there is nothing supernatural about it. If 4 cells can come together, so can 8, so can 30 trillion. For organisms with less than 1 Million cells, not much is possible. Such organisms will never be capable of understanding mathematics, driving cars, or traveling the stars. There is a sweet spot, somewhere between 1 Million cells and 30 Trillion, whereby something supernatural-like emerges, endowing the larger celled organism to do something even greater than its cell count should allow. In other words, it's not a linear scale. The cell count may have gone up by a factor of 1,000, but because of the power of "emergent-properties" the potential for the organism went up by a factor of 10,000.

Sense we are able to use induction to prove that nothing supernatural was required in order to go from a 4-celled organism, to a 30 trillion-celled one, it would be silly for someone to attempt to add supernatural conjecture to the mix.

You might argue that it's impossible to quantify "emergent-properties", so that's where supernatural hypotheses are usually added. I would argue that most emergent-properties that were once nearly impossible for us to measure are about to become much easier to measure because of AI. Our AI's can keep track of the interactions between the trillions of variables in a given equation. Take the folding of protein as an example: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.370.6521.1144

Neurons in the brain are part of those 30 Trillion cells in the human body. All the same concepts apply to how consciousness is an emergent-property of having more neurons. A human brain contains around 80-90 Billion neurons. Compare a brain containing 100 neurons with a brain containing 85 Billion. Somewhere between 100 and 85B, emergent-properties arose which made the sum greater than the parts. Not because of anything supernatural or unmeasurable, but because of emergent properties and induction. If I can prove 4 neurons can work together to solve problems and make decisions for the whole, then I can also prove it works for 8 neurons.... 16.... 32..... 85 billion. And it's not linear because of the emergent-properties and work. A brain going from 100 neurons to 85 may be an increase of 1,000 times, but the practical functionality of that brain goes up more like 10,000 times.

"Then comes the attempts to describe these phenomenon with physical sciences. Again, no evidence."

Using induction, why couldn't a sufficient number of neurons be enough to create all kinds of crazy experiences for itself. Dreams, ideas, creativity, and even "visits to an unearthly dimension".... all within the realm of basic computing. Have you seem the videos of modern day, artificial neural-networks having "dreams"? Looks otherworldly to me. Near-Death-Experiences, to me, seem a lot like the average DMT experience. The compound makes the neurons in the brain configure in a way that is not normal, but still coherent enough to retain its visuals and experiences. It disconnects itself from the external world and focuses inward.... similar to what happens when we dream. And, sense all humans have similar brain structures and similar neuron counts, they experience similar NDE's and DMT trips.

Why do we need to throw anything supernatural into this? There is real science to show how neural-networks work. And with AI, we may be able to quantify the emergent-properties piece of consciousness and AI.

People who claim there must be a supernatural element are committing the God-of-the-Gaps fallacy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_of_the_gaps#:~:text=The%20term%20God%2Dof%2Dthe,an%20argument%20from%20ignorance%20fallacy.

For all time, humans have been coming up with supernatural hypothesis for things we couldn't understand. Eventually, science could explain more and more of nature, and the supernatural began losing ground. Yet, even today, people continue to make this fallacy. As soon as we reach the limits of modern science, gods and other supernatural conjecture takes over.

Why don't people apply "Occam's razor" to everything in their lives? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam%27s_razor Why the need for something greater? Why the need for something supernatural? Why not live with humility and the "don't trust, verify" ethos?