X-Message-Number: 25118 From: "Valera Retyunin" <> Subject: I, me, mine Date: Sun, 21 Nov 2004 00:03:04 +0300 Robert Ettinger wrote: >The persistent claim, that there is a philosophical gap between the objective >and the subjective and that subjectivity is inherently private, is wrong. > >First, we can in principle discern objective criteria of consciousness by >the usual means. For example, if certain brain events accompany a subject's >report of feeling, and if we ourselves have the same feeling when the apparatus >detects such events in our brains, then we conclude that the feeling is inherent >in the events. I think what really matters with regard to the uploading issue is the evident distinction between the experiencer and the experienced. I'm avoiding the word "gap" here because it implies complete separation. The experiencer and the experienced may be interconnected, or interdependent, but they are NOT the same. They, BTW, may be both subjective in one reference framework ("the experiencer" = "the awareness of myself existing" vs "the experienced" = "feelings & senses of joy, sadness, pain etc") while objective in another ("the experiencer" = "the neural circuits responsible for the awareness of myself existing" vs "the experienced" = "the neural circuits responsible for feelings etc"). If they were the same I couldn't possibly control my feelings, for instance. Feelings cannot control themselves. But I, to a certain extent, can (here "I" = "my experiencer"). If someone says it's an illusion, it doesn't matter to me. In my world the experiencer is a given fact that does not need to be proven. It's one of the designations I use for the most essential part of me without which my existence would be impossible. My experiences are also important parts of me, but they are not essential to my personal survival. If I lost all my memories, the ability to feel etc I would still survive. My existence would be highly degraded but it would still be me (at least for myself, maybe not for some of the people who know me). I by no means insist the above is true for everyone, I can only speak for myself. Now, if, during cryonics suspension of somebody like me, the neural circuits responsible for feelings, memories, temperament etc were irreversibly damaged, but the ones responsible for the self-awareness remained sufficiently intact, and you had a sufficiently detailed map, or exact copy of the damaged circuits, there's a chance that the original person could still be brought back to life, and the "inessential" parts of that person could be recreated. Whether it's possible or not depends on how closely the essential and "inessential" neural circuits are interconnected. If the circuits responsible for the self-awareness did not remain sufficiently intact, the original person would be gone forever, even if you had an exact map or copy of them. Which effectively means that until we have the full knowledge as to which neural circuits are responsible for the self-awareness, no-one will know if a person reanimated from suspension is the original or a copy (the reanimated person will obviously believe they are the original in any event if some of the original memories are retained). >It is even conceivable that there is a kernel of truth in the Oriental >notion of everybody being part of everyone else--horrible thought. Would this help everybody or everyone else survive death? Scott Badger wrote: >It's understandably difficult not to buy into the >notion that there is an experiencer (homunculus) in >the brain because we all grow up making "I" >statements. "I see", "I want", etc. There's no need for me to buy the notion of my experiencer. It's the first, most basic knowledge I have, an axiom on which the rest of my knowledge is built. It is the notion of my brain that I have the options to buy or not to buy since I learnt about the brain from others. >Who is this "I" after all? I suspect the self >gradually came into existence once the brain became >complex and sophisticated enough to represent itself >as one of the objects in its environment. Now, the >brain not only processes environmental stimuli, but >appreciates it, analyzes it, and reflects upon it. >What a great illusion, huh? Things that I appreciate, analyse and reflect upon are not exactly me. That's true even for things that only exist in my mind. Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=25118