X-Message-Number: 14822
Date: Tue, 31 Oct 2000 22:34:16 -0500
From: david pizer <>
Subject: Re: CryoNet #14800 - #14808

Pizer's Reply to Henri Kluytmans <>
>Subject: Memories are Secondary

>Could you please read the postings from me and others!
>As we've already remarked several times : "Information 
>and memory are not the same." !!!!

I think memories ARE ONLY information.  I do not see how they can be broken
down into anything else??  A memory is a pattern of information imprinted
somewhere in the brain.

>First you must realize that we did never claim that *the 
>mind is only memories*.

Perhaps, *you* didn't but I was refering to all the people who think that
memories are the sum total of selfness, and  if they can upload their
memories into a computer that has awareness, (in some fashion) and if this
computer can then feel their memories instead of the original mind in their
original brain feelint them, they will consider that a form of survival.

My point was that the thing that feels the memories is the main thing that
makes a person the person he/she is.

>It seems that you are confusing a running state and frozen state 
>of the mind. According to the informational theory of identity, 
>the mind is only information when in a frozen state. In a running 
>state (when the process of feeling can take place) the mind is 
>an *information process*.

Perhaps we are all confusing each other.  I am not saying the mind is or is
not memories.  I am saying a person is NOT mainly memories, although they
play a role in the make up of a person.  A person is a mind that feels
memories.  That mind is different, separate from the memories.  The part of
the mind that feels memories and direct sensory input and awareness is the
part that is the main  component of selfhood.  It is a living hunk of meat;
not an abstract pattern of information similar to what a memory is
imprinted as.

>>Surely, it must be certain that no one on this advanced forum has 
>>a problem separating the concepts of memories from that which 
>>percieves them.

>This is irrelevant.

I didn't mean it to be.  The last part of this conment is the conclusion of
my argument that memories are different from that which percieves them.  I
put it in this form so that it would be evident by the language that the
two are separate; that which is a memory, and that which feels or processes
the memory.    

>>Then it follows that memories without a mind to percieve them 
>>in cannot exist.  

>But they can. Somebody can read a book or store it away. 
>And a story can still exist without a mind to percieve it.

I am thinking of a memory in the mind that can only be felt directly.  A
book has to be read and then would enter the mind through regular sensory
impression channels, either through the eyes or ears.

However, if you are right, it would seem to support my position by showing
that the memory you mention as in a book is clearly not a part of any mind
or any personhood.

>>So it is clear that the mind is separate and more basic then 
>>patterns of information called memories.
>
>Hmm, so you agree that memories are only a subset of information...

It more seems to me that memories are patterns of information. Memories
become thoughts ONLY when the feeling part of the brain calls them into
awarness.

>I would like to know, what was your answer to my hypothetical scenario? 
>Or did you put that to rest ?

I am sorry, I lost it.  Please send it again.

As you know if you measure some things one way they look like a wave;  if
you measure them another way, they look like a particle.  I don't know if
we are having a similar difference?

Dave Pizer

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