X-Message-Number: 25240
Date: Mon,  6 Dec 2004 18:13:34 -0800
Subject: Note on the QE for Thomas
From: <>

Dear Thomas:

[snip]

You wrote:

"So when we recreate someone according to the record,
we recreate their QE also."

I have debunked this. If following a blueprint led to the 
'recreation' of something that existed previously, this would be a 
form of time travel; more absurdly, it would allow the 'recreation' 
of the same thing multiple times, simultaneously, by simple 
repetition of following the blueprint. Since a thing cannot exist 
in more than one location, but since if we create two things by 
following a blueprint, clearly those things *can* exist in two 
locations simultaneously, this conclusively proves they are not the 
same thing.

The most you can do with a blueprint is use it to build a similar 
thing of something that existed previously.

You wrote:

"Turning into a record is a change of physical form"

Explain to me how you can turn a hunk of matter into a record. You 
can't. You can jot notes to yourself on the arrangement of a hunk 
of matter, but this doesn't turn anything into anything else. The 
hunk of matter remains (or does not, if you destroyed it in this 
note taking process), but nothing changed into anything else.

Your mysticism smells of alchemy.

You wrote:

"--- and note that records usually aren't just mental
constructions, they have a physical form. For RBR, when you spoke
about records you seem not to have noticed this difference."

On the contrary, 'record' does NOT exist outside human minds, as 
something more than a word used to denote a process. Rather, the 
precise way of phrasing it is that people use physical things to 
subjectively encode descriptions of physical systems.

You may call these physical things 'records', if you wish, as long 
as you recognize these arrangements do not possess an objective 
interpretation, as the word 'record' might suggest. Pointing to the 
bits on a hard disk or the scribbligs on a page, you MAY NOT say, 
'that is the record of a human brain.' The most you can say with 
precision is, 'I can use my subjective interpretive scheme to 
interpret this particular arrangement of matter to be the 
arrangement of atoms in a brain.'

But of course, you can do the preceding with any arrangement of 
atoms, say, those of a rock, and with any interpretive scheme; no 
one scheme is correct. Objective correctness (or lack thereof) is 
not a property that interpretive schemes can have, by their very 
nature.

You wrote:

"I will add that I assumed that the record was EXACT. It's that 
factor which makes preservation as a record very very difficult
as a practical matter."

On the contrary, QM forbids the precise duplication of a physical 
system such as the human brain. It's not that it's just difficult---
it's impossible, even theoretically. Moreover, duplication is 
irrelevant, since you are not a pattern (patterns do not exist), 
but a physical thing, and while you can create another physical 
thing that has the same atomic arrangement as you, that physical 
thing is useless for your subjective inner-life. Indeed, if someone 
created a duplicate of you right now, on some space station, 
looking out a window at a nearby galaxy, do you think you would 
suddenly shift from reading this message to staring out the window 
at the galaxy? Of course not. The creation of a duplicate has no 
effect on your subjective inner life.

[snip]

You wrote:

"I raised the possibility of discontinuities in our existence,
either because of quantum mechanical possibilities or simply a
hiatus."

You 'raised' this possibility because you are unable to comprehend 
that a duplicate is not numerically identical to the original. As I 
have proven above and in previous messages, the idea that following 
a blueprint gets you the original is VERIFIABLY FALSE. Therefore, 
it is strange you are still obsessed with the idea.

[snip]

You wrote:

"I don't believe either of you answered thequestion resulting from 
this: does that create ANOTHER QE, or do they somehow have the same 
QE? The same may be said about conditions in which people seem to 
adopt two or more different personalities."

Who can say? It depends on the brain stem that connects them, and 
unknown features of the QE. 

You wrote:

"And note that there's no discontinuity in the latter conditions,
and for the first, if it isn't a surgical cut of the CC but done
by anesthetic, then there's no discontinuity either. Can we have
many QEs or only one?"

'We' can have only one; that is, there can be only a single 
subjective 'I'. Can there be another 'I' in my brain, whether split 
or not? That's something I could never know, by definition.

You wrote:

"For RBR: an argument which pours scorn on an opponent without 
really answering the questions he/she raises is a weak argument
indeed. If anything, it is an argument for the opposition."

On the contrary, I have answered your questions numerous times and 
advanced strong arguments for why you are wrong, which you have 
never dealt with. It is as if I'm speaking to one of my students on 
some advanced topic: you hear the words but they do not sink in, so 
you ask the same questions again and fail to see how my answers 
relate to your views.

Best Regards,

Richard B. R.

Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=25240