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.

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