X-Message-Number: 25181
Date: Tue, 30 Nov 2004 07:31:04 -0500
From: Thomas Donaldson <>
Subject: CryoNet #25176 - #25180

To Bob Ettinger:
Sorry, but the purpose of my message wasn't exactly what you may have
thought. It's very easy to simply say "continuity is important", but
when it comes to defining just what continuity means, that seems to
be left unsaid. If you were the subject of this experiment, and 
were revived exactly (an unlikely possibility, I know very well)
then just where is continuity lacking? You wouldn't be aware of any
difference in times at all, as if you had moved instantly to a 
different room, or stepped through a hole in space which put you
a day in your future. Yes, others would say that you had been 
destroyed and then recreated, but some might argue that the 
recreation itself had been continuous with the former person
because it was like that person in every respect.

Note that I followed my question with another one, asking how we
knew that our QE wasn't recreated every time we went to sleep
and later awoke.

To Henri Kluytemann:
I forgot to add to my discussion of the de Garis work that it did
look like a genuine attempt to create a brain. I'll also point
out, as you know yourself, that most of that attempt lies in the
future, when we can make much smaller "neurons" and "neural nets".
The devices actually built or even simulated in a contemporary
computer were quite far from anything which might even be thought
of as an insect brain. But it was a good effort, and brought
more of the features of brain cells than other methods have done.

Besides their major trait of growing new circuits and neurons, 
our brains also have more abilities at self-repair than I've yet
seen in any device yet built (full stop).  Suppose we created an
artificial brain which thought like we do when we're healthy,
but had quite different forms of breakdown than our brains do.
In terms of helping us understand how we work, such a brain wouldn't
be all that helpful, even though it could do some of the things
we normally do. I'd probably decide that it was a different form
of intelligence entirely. For that matter, a true artificial
brain would also have to have its own desires and will; without
these we merely have a very complex computing device able to solve
(some) of our problems for us...a useful tool. 

             Best wishes and long long life to all,

                Thomas Donaldson

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