X-Message-Number: 12999
Date: Fri, 24 Dec 1999 23:14:35 -0700
From: Mike Perry <>
Subject: Simulations, Death Fallacy

Bob Ettinger raised some issues in regard to a sequential machine simulating
a "parallel"-type process. This involves a thought experiment in which we
imagine a very extensive sequential process is involved, one that, for
example, might model a person down to the level of subatomic particles.
Could such a process (say it is being conducted by a Turing machine working
slowly over eons, "emotionlessly" printing and erasing symbols one at a
time) exhibit any consciousness? Bob and many others are highly skeptical of
this possibility, but I favor it because of what I've called (in my book) a
"Principle of Large Quantity." If, say, the number of events of the
sequential device is 10^60, and it takes 10^40 of these micro-events to add
up to one "significant, subjective event" or macro-event  in our modeling of
consciousness, that allows us to model 10^20 of these significant
events--still a sizable number. Basically, if you allow enough of the
micro-events per macro-event, the problems I think diminish, and even become
insignificant. As for time-reversals and other such things, I just ask
myself what I would think if I learned that I am right now something being
modeled in reverse, in some larger, enveloping universe. Then, relative to
me, that universe would be time-reversed--strange indeed, but no problem as
far as I can see. (I think, therefore I am conscious, even if somebody else
won't believe it.) Closer to home, some interesting, simple clinical
experiments involve brain events that are experienced, subjectively, in a
different temporal order from that in which they actually occur, like the
"cutaneous rabbit." I found this in *Time, A Traveler's Guide* by Pickover
(sorry I don't have time to comment further here).

On the "death advantage fallacy" of Keith Rene Dugue, an interesting line of
argument, and I consider myself very anti-deathist, yet I really don't buy
the argument. On the face of it, it doesn't seem intuitive that a state of
non-existence should be considered "worse" than any state of existence
however horrible. (Otherwise it would seem that there are innumerable,
potential beings, who are worse off right now than if they were in a
perpetual lake of fire. Hell hath no fury like nonexistence!)

And here is how I would counter the argument. Consider the statement S,
"Jones is suffering inconceivable amounts of intolerable pain." We might say
it is better if S is not true than if S is true. If Jones is non-existent it
seems reasonable to regard S as "not true," for the simple reason that S can
be *true* only if Jones exists. Another way to look at it is that S is
really equivalent to the longer statement, "There exists a conscious being
named Jones and that being is suffering inconceivable amounts of intolerable
pain." So to say "it is not the case that S is true" it is not necessary to
presuppose that Jones exists or is conscious in any sense, including that of
an afterlife.

Mike Perry

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