X-Message-Number: 25174
From: 
Date: Sun, 28 Nov 2004 11:29:47 EST
Subject: more on qualia & survival

I think most of what RBR has written is correct, but with some shortcomings.

>**The qualia experiencer is the part of the brain in which state
>changes correlate precisely with subjective experience.**

That is like saying that the water is that which experiences 

waves--collections of matter and changes of state of those collections. Maybe 
it's a quibble, 
but I would say that the "wave" is the water and the (evolving) shape 

together. The quale is the material and the evolving configuration together. 
Thus, the 
experiencer and the experience are the same. 

>it is proper to say that experience is something that
>*happens* to us, in the same way that decay is something that
>*happens* to a radioactive isotope.

No. The atom can exist without the event. The person does not exist (except 
potentially) in the absence of qualia. Maybe just another quibble, but I think 
we need to be clear.

>if I am correct, then a poor cryonics suspension, or even
>delay after death, would likely result in permanent destruction.

This is a premature conclusion. If a quale has extension in space and time, 

then we overlap our predecessors and continuers. Quantum entanglement can cover
very large gaps of space and time. It is simply too soon to make definitive 
statements.

>you cannot use the laws of physics to deduce the
>existence of subjectivity (and this is what the philosophers,
>Chalmers especially, assert). 

Amusing that the philosophers implicitly give more weight to the "laws" of 

physics than to our subjective experience which is PRIOR to the laws of physics.
Those "laws" are just (essentially subjective) models of a presumed external 
reality. 

In another post, I believe RBR said something to the effect that the number 5 
has no reality--only physical collections of objects have reality. This is a 
matter of dispute, going back at least to Plato, as he knows. Further, modern 
theories offer even stranger notions. In quantum theory, apparently 

counterfactuals--things that don't happen--can have physical effects on things 
that do 
happen. A mere potentiality is in some sense a physical reality. 

As usual, you do your best and you take your chances. And the smartest or 
best informed person is not necessarily the happiest. But integrity or honor 
seems valuable to most of us.

But while I'm at it, one more knock on the patternists. They think that, if a 
person removed in spatiotemporal location is sufficiently similar to you, 
that person "is" you, and his survival "ought" to be considered your survival. 
You "share" identity.  But unless there is a sharp cut-off, partial similarity 

should mean partial identity. Well, we "share" a backbone with all vertebrates,
which apparently means that "you" and something on sale at the Fulton Fish 

Market are partly the same person. You and a sibling are pretty nearly the same
person. But inventing definitions is not always the same as solving problems.

Robert Ettinger


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

[ AUTOMATICALLY SKIPPING HTML ENCODING! ] 

Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=25174