X-Message-Number: 14975
Date: Tue, 21 Nov 2000 01:54:48 -0800
From: Lee Corbin <>
Subject: re: whatever-wherever-whenever man

In a fine piece, #14962, Robert Ettinger proceeded to make some
necessary points concerning the assumptions behind uploading.

>Let's first ease off some of the pressure on the uploaders, and not insist 
>that isomorphism is good enough for time as well as matter and space.

You are very kind.  But the mysteries of causality and the arrow of
time perplex more people than just uploaders.  And I, for one, don't
have an entirely clear account of why time is a more important
dimension than the others.

>The physical nature of the "computer" doesn't matter, nor does its
algorithm, 
>so long as it produces the necessary result--a succession of sets of symbols 
>corresponding to successive quantum states of the person. The "computer" 
>could be distributed! One part of it would not have to "know" what another 
>part was doing! As long as--somehow, somewhere--appropriate sets of symbols 
>appear, in the right order, "you" live!

In my opinion, this is almost right.  Though the computer could be
distributed, often one part would need to know results from another
part, just as your hippocampus needs to be influenced by what has
happened in a parietal lobe.  So (according to us) "you" live as
long as the entire causal calculation is done, and it doesn't matter
by what.  It is NOT sufficient for parts to proceed in ignorance of
each other.

>Well, remember the sculptor? "Inside every slab of marble there is a 
>beautiful sculpture. All the sculptor has to do is remove the covering." And 
>all the observer of emulation has to do is recognize those parts of the 
>universe where some set of atoms (or whatever) are arranged in an order that 
>could be interpreted as constituting the right symbols; and a chronon later, 

>somewhere else, he perceives an arrangement that could be interpreted as a 
>succeeding quantum state. 

This is the "Theory of Dust" talked about by Greg Egan in the science
fiction novel "Permutation City".  He had a catchy name for it, but it's
an old idea.  Morovec alludes to it in the appendix of Mind Children.

Morovec writes (page 178), "Don't mathematical properties exist even if
they don't happen to be written down anywhere?  Doesn't the billionth
digit of pi exist even if we haven't yet managed to compute it. [By
the way, Hans, it's "9".]  In the same sense, don't the abstract
mathematical relationships that are the feelings of a person exist
even in the absence of any particular hardware to compute them?  This
happens to be an old philosophical conundrum; and though I think it
must be true, I do not see how to draw any meaningful conclusions
from it since it seems to imply that everything possible exists."

Morovec doesn't appear to think that it matters whether the patterns
"get run time" or not.  Your arguments are well aimed at him.

And then the philosopher Hillary Putnam comes up with a completely
ridiculous "proof" in the appendix of "Representation and Reality", 
(page 121).  "Theorem: Every ordinary open system is a realization of
every abstract finite automaton", which to me shows what can happen
if you let a love of formal thinking get away from your common sense.
But the idea is the same: you can "find" every abstract pattern in
everything if you look hard enough.

>... and a chronon later, somewhere else, he perceives an arrangement
>that could be interpreted as a succeeding quantum state. 

No, it is utterly inadequate for patterns to merely be perceived.
After all, that has no causal effect on them.  Just as you say,
however, out between the galaxies it is possible to "find" patterns
of dust, molecules, or atoms in any desired pattern, including the
digits of pi, or patterns isomorphic to Mike Perry.  But unless th
correct sequences of these are causally linked, it's meaningless.

Thus your argument here, I believe, does not apply to uploaders who
shun the Theory of Dust.

Lee Corbin

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