X-Message-Number: 14764
From: 
Date: Sun, 22 Oct 2000 14:33:33 EDT
Subject: Perry's zombies

Once more, mostly for newcomers:

Mike Perry (#14757) wrote, in part and in rough paraphrase, something to the 
effect that we have a variation of the old "zombie" puzzle if we imagine, in 
the brain, we substitute for the natural self circuit some mechanism which is 
entirely different, but which still produces the same effects at critical 
junctures in the brain, perhaps voltages at synapses or some such, resulting 
in the same movements of the muscles of the face, hands, larynx, etc. How can 
we tell if, behind the apparent sentient outward behavior, there is a person 
or a zombie (automaton)?

First, this substitution may not prove possible. There is no guarantee that a 
physical mechanism could be devised which could, in the available space and 
real time, substitute for the standing wave or other actual mechanism of the 
self circuit.

If it were to prove possible, we might indeed have a conundrum, but I'm 
willing to cross that bridge when we come to it, rather than build a rickety 
philosophical structure on the assumption that it could be done.

Mike also reiterates his position that sentience may be a quantitative 
function of goal-seeking behavior, and even simple mechanisms may have it in 
some degree, and he implies that therefore perhaps we already understand it 
to some extent.

I strongly disagree here. I can't say whether insects or microbes have a 
degree of sentience; possibly they do. But to say (for example) that Grey 
Walter's tortoises (little automatons that look for electrical outlets to 
plug themselves into) have sentience is going much too far. The extreme in 
this direction is the position--actually taken by some--that even a 
thermostat has a degree of feeling. ("It's too cold in here" or "It's too hot 
in here.")  Again, this position, it seems to me, is equivalent to just 
waving your hands in the air and saying "feeling emerges" --somehow-- 
whenever the system displays behavior patterns similar to those of systems 
known to be sentient. As Donaldson has pointed out, you might as well say 
that a movie of a person, or of Donald Duck for that matter, is sentient. 
(Yes, such movies can be made interactive too.)

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

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