X-Message-Number: 16187
Date: Thu, 3 May 2001 18:39:10 -0400
From: Jeffrey Soreff <>
Subject: Re: Important question for the isomorphists

>> Louis Epstein wrote:
>> >Computerized entities are not persons,and wisdom rejects any definition
>> >of person that includes them.
>>
>> As far as I can tell, a sufficiently good simulation of a person would
>> have the same subjective experience and the same social interactions as
>> a biological person.  I, for one, would include such simulations in the
>> same category of persons as the biological ones.  Please display the
>> "wisdom" that persuades you to exclude them.
>
>A simulation is still a simulation.Programming a computer to argue
>convincingly that it is intelligent does not make it intelligent.
>The illusion of experience is not experience.

Ok, I guess that persuades you.  As far as I'm concerned, successfully
programming a computer to argue convincingly that it is intelligent
does indeed make the system (hardware plus software) intelligent.
Should we drop this?  I accept the Turing test as the test of what
counts as intelligence, but I guess you want some additional conditions
met.

>> >Neurosuspension,as I stated,I consider a bad joke...and if no new
>> >organic body can be created for the severed head,there is no point
>> >in attaching it to a substitute.
>>
>> So there is "no point" in reviving a biological brain if it is to be
>> attached to a non-biological body?  You do realize, don't you, that
>> there are a _lot_ of people walking around with partially "substitute"
>> bodies?  Do you have any fillings in your teeth?
>
>Yes,since I was nineteen...but that doesn't mean I'd want to be the
>head of a robot.(My father has patents for hip and knee replacements
>with bearings in them,for example...but that doesn't mean patients
>should be turned into inorganic entities).

Hmm, I'd be happy to have my brain in the head of a robot _provided_
it was a sufficiently good robot.

>And I hope that anti-aging solutions will make non-renewing parts of
>bodies renew themselves as needed,rather than replace them with
>artificial parts.Artificial is a stopgap.

Anti-aging solutions that made the non-renewing parts of our bodies
renew themselves are certainly desirable, but I don't thing they are
the last word.

The question, to my mind, is not whether something is artificial or
biological, but rather how well it works.  To date, artificial
replacement parts have in fact had poorer quality than the natural
structures they replaced.  Over the long term, however, synthetic
techniques can exploit the best options from _both_ biological
sources and purely artificial sources.  In this time frame, artificial
(in this broad sense) isn't a stopgap, it is preferable, and you'll
see perfectly healthy people start to use them.  For example, Freitas's
respirocytes would be better than red cells.  I'd want them in my
bloodstream today if we could build them now.  Wouldn't you?

                                  Best wishes,
                                  -Jeffrey Soreff

Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=16187