X-Message-Number: 25168
Date: Sat, 27 Nov 2004 12:29:33 -0800
Subject: Pattern/Process Souls vs. Materialism: Mike, Scott, et al
From: <>

Dear Mike, Scott, et al:

1. 'Process' is a word we use to denote a kind of change in a
physical system. For example, the process of neural firing, or the
process of radioactive decay. A change is not something that
exists; rather, a change is something that *happens*, and it
doesn't just happen in isolation---rather, it happens to a system.
This is another way of saying, 'Things change.'

Now our great strength as human beings comes from our ability to
abstract. We create abstractions and concepts that exist only
within our minds. The number five, or the process of my brain
activity, or the day Monday, are all examples of such abstraction.
But just because we can throw around abstractions in our language
as if they were existing things, that does not make them exist.
Monday does not exist, no more than the number five, or no more
than the process of 'me'.

Matter and energy exist. That is all (we know) to exist, in this
physical reality of ours.

A process can only exist as a word within a human head used to
denote change. A word cannot have conscious experience. It cannot
have any such property. Processes have no properties at all,
because they are concepts and not factually existing things.

2. A program does not possess an objective interpretation. Mike
has used the example of an alien civilization, saying if they can
deduce some meaning, that is the 'true' meaning. These hand-waving
arguments do not (and should not) convince anyone of anything.

I can write a stock investment program for some alien
civilization; and yet it may correspond precisely to the brain
program of Mike Perry. Is the program 'conscious' or not? Is it
Mike Perry or a stock investment program? Whether I write it as a
stock investment program, or it is built to emulate Mike's brain,
the end result is the same sequence of bits.

Clearly such musings are absurd. A program has no objective
existence, but rather, any meaning the program has is subjective,
relative to the person using the program. It would be irrational
to imagine that the same sequence of bits can be conscious if it
comes from a brain scan and physics package combo, but merely an
investment program if it comes from the work of my hands.

Therefore, software can never be considered alive or conscious.
Consciousness is a property of hardware---a system has it or does
not, and the type of consciousness it has no doubt depends on the
specifics of the hardware. If you succeed in building a conscious
computer, and then have this computer mash some bits, then the
fact that you can interpret those bits to be the brain program of
Mike Perry does not mean that Mike Perry is conscious. It means
only a conscious computer is mashing some bits---which bits some
people may subjectively interpret to be the brain program of Mike
Perry, but which have no objective interpretation, since anything
requiring 'interpretation' is by definition not objective.

An atom is an objective thing. So is the brain. You do not need a
subjective interpretation for it to exist. It simply is.

3. Even if you ignore all the preceding objections (which I would
contend are insurmountable), you are left with numerous holes in
the theory of pattern consciousness.

For example, how close does a pattern have to be to me before it
is me, in the sense that my subjective experience continues in
that pattern's instantiation upon my termination? Is a 0.0001%
difference enough to preserve the continuity of my subjective
inner-life? If it is, then recursion will show that something 100%
different will preserve my subjectivity.

Or if I die, and am brought back or simply come to exist through
chance in multiple branches of the multiverse, in which 'body'
does my subjective inner-life continue? From my perspective, as I
am dying, my world fades to black. When I open my eyes, what do I
see? Whose body is counted as mine? The metaphysical and arbitrary
nature of such decisions is another strike against the theory.

Surely, these many absurdities arise because the theory is
untenable. When you play with things that don't exist (such as
patterns and processes and non-physical 'souls'), you will run
into problems. This is why the theory cannot survive close
rational examination.

Best Regards,

Richard B. R.

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