X-Message-Number: 21309
From: 
Date: Fri, 28 Feb 2003 10:07:16 EST
Subject: The Soul as Code

--part1_117.1fb3daff.2b90d524_boundary
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

Mike Perry writes in part:

> I do feel the mind is nonphysical
> 
--meaning a form of Platonism, shared by a number of philosophers and 
scientists, which is essentially the uploading thesis, that information and 
information processing constitute everything of importance, or in other words 
that isomorphism is everything.

However--as Mike fully realizes and acknowledges from time to time--this 
leaves serious problems, which in fact seem to me to be fatal to the thesis.

For one thing, as I have repeatedly pointed out, if you accept isomorphism 
for matter and for space, why not also for time? But this leads to what I 
have called the "Turing Tome," an enormous book in which each page describes 
the quantum state of the universe at a particular moment of time. The book as 
a whole represents, and therefore "is" the universe (or an emulation) 
including its evolution over time--or whatever subset of the universal 
history the simulation or emulation may contain.

Another aspect of the problem is that it becomes difficult or impossible to 
distinguish existence from potential existence. Pi exists whether it is 
written down in mathematical symbols or not, and in the same sense we 
supposedly exist whether we are instantiated or not. You are therefore 
already immortal, always have been and always will be--in fact, every version 
of you and your history or possible histories. (Horrible thought!)

Yet again, the essential problem of survival is not what seems plausible but 
what can be proven from unimpeachable premises. So far there is no agreed 
answer, nor any fully satisfactory answer as far as I know. We place our bets 
and take our chances.

Robert Ettinger



--part1_117.1fb3daff.2b90d524_boundary

 Content-Type: text/html; charset="US-ASCII"

[ AUTOMATICALLY SKIPPING HTML ENCODING! ] 

Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=21309