We’ve now arrived at an answer to our opening question about how tangible physical stuff can give rise to something that feels as intangible, abstract and ethereal as intelligence: it feels so non-physical because it’s substrate-independent, taking on a life of its own that doesn’t depend on or reflect the physical details. In short, computation is a pattern in the spacetime arrangement of particles, and it’s not the particles but the pattern that really matters! Matter doesn’t matter.
