X-Message-Number: 14979
From: 
Date: Tue, 21 Nov 2000 09:56:04 EST
Subject: Leitl, brief reply

Eugene Leitl (#14965) needs to learn to pay attention. He badly misrepresents 
my position, as evidenced by his last two paragraphs:

>Look, you'r objections are already nuked by some of state of the
 >art. Right now people are writing cell simulators and neuronal
 >codes. In 15-20 years we should be able to make an individually
 >accurate computational model of primitive critters, e.g. a
 >nematode, maybe even something as smart as aplysia or even a lamprey.
 
I have never denied--and have explicity agreed, repeatedly--that a digital 
computer could, in principle, model or emulate any physical system to any 
desired degree of accuracy. (Of course perfection, or even asymptotic 
perfection, will have to wait until we have full knowledge of the laws of 
nature, which might be a long time.) 

The question is not the possibility of modeling, but the reality (or not) of 
the model being "the same as" the original in some appropriate sense. In 
particular, for example, would a paper tape sequential computer have 
feelings? It's too soon to know for sure, but there are ample reasons for 
doubt.

We do agree on one thing. Leitl says:

 >I wish you would live to see such work, and I would love to hear you
 >explaining away a virtual critter showing chemotaxis or previously
 >learned labyrinth navigation.

I also hope I live to see it. I don't have to "explain it away," since I have 
never denied it is possible, and on the contrary have always expected it.

In fact, I have suggested an added stratagem for repairing frozen people when 
some of the information is missing. You run computer simulations of the 
deterioration, including freezing and storage and thawing, using your best 
guesses for the middle of an enormous range of starting points and your 
observations for the ending points. Retrofitting allows you to estimate 
accurately what the initial (undamaged) state must have been. To my 
knowledge, no one has previously suggested this.

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

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