X-Message-Number: 14658
From: 
Date: Tue, 10 Oct 2000 13:09:47 EDT
Subject: again copies and feeling

Henri Kluytmans (#14638) wrote:

>Assuming that the fundamental functional basis of our brain/mind is only the 
neural >network (lets neglect details like the hormonal system, etc..), then 
its sufficient to >understand how the building blocks (i.e. the neurons) work 
exactly. In principle its >then sufficient to replace all the building blocks 
by articifical functional equivalents >and keep the same interconnectional 
structure. So in this case a sentience could >be transferred without knowing 
how it works.

We cannot assume the mind depends only on the neural network, which in any 
case is much too vague. However, on a more fundamental level it is true that, 
if you could copy the position of every atom, you could copy the person, 
without knowing how the parts work together. But that bypasses the two 
significant questions.

First, as Dave Pizer and many others have said, the "philosophical" problems 
have not been solved, and it is not clear--and probably not true--that a copy 
"ought" to be considered to share your identity. 

Second, it is not clear, and probably not true, that sentience (feeling) is 
strictly a function of "information" or data processing, in the sense that 
only isomorphism matters and any "rendering" of you is you. A description of 
a thing IS the thing ONLY in some cases or for some purposes; in general, the 
map is NOT the territory. In particular, if feeling requires (is constituted 
by) electrical/chemical standing waves of some sort--SIMULTANEOUS coordinated 
changes--then not all substrates could produce them, and a Turing tape never 
could, which means that no computer ever could.

Robert Ettinger
Cryonics Institute
Immortalist Society
http://www.cryonics.org

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