X-Message-Number: 21727
Date: Fri, 09 May 2003 00:57:26 -0700
From: Mike Perry <>
Subject: Francois' Thought Experiment

Francois, #21720, proposes to gradually turn a person, expressed in the 
usual wetware, into equivalently functioning, bit-crunching, computer 
hardware. This would be done while the subject was fully conscious, with 
the change at each point not affecting that consciousness. This basic idea 
has been considered before, for example, in Hans Moravec's article on 
intelligent machines in the Feb. 1979 *Analog*. There he says, "[t]hough 
you have not lost consciousness, nor even your train of thought, your mind 
has been removed from the brain and transferred to the machine" (p. 80). 
Not a problem for me, in principle; some others disagree. Some, I think, 
fear the possibility that a person could turn into an unconscious zombie 
which was only imitating having feeling and consciousness. To me it seems 
there would be no way you could ever *prove* that an inorganic system that 
met certain tests and seemed to be conscious was not in fact conscious. So, 
as I've indicated before, I'd be likely to give the benefit of doubt, and 
also, to choose myself to be changed into something inorganic if it would 
offer advantages such as greater durability or better memory, increased 
intelligence and so on.

Mike Perry

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