X-Message-Number: 25463
Date: Sat, 01 Jan 2005 23:54:12 -0700
From: Mike Perry <>
Subject: Duplicates, etc.--a few more comments.
References: <>

>Richard wrote:
>"Clearly the [original] subjective inner life of the patient cannot
>continue in multiple brains..."
>
>Scott Badger wrote:
>I agree. As unappealing and counter-intuitive as it may be,
>that is the quandry we face.

Scott also mentions a theory of mind known as functionalism, which I 
endorse (see my book).

As for the above quotes, we want to know under what conditions the 
"subjective inner life of the patient" continues. By my intuition, "I" 
survive from an earlier time *only if* I have some recollection of that 
earlier time, which is to say, putting the case as weakly as I know how, 
only if there are some physical traces in my brain (or even possibly 
elsewhere) that pertain in some reasonable sense to that earlier time and 
also influence my consciousness today. Basically, my past experiences are 
reduced to *information*, and that information is somehow read as I ponder 
today, and I am then aware, at least to some degree, of a past version of 
myself, so I think of having "survived" from the past. But note that the 
past self had to pass through an information "bottleneck," that is to say, 
be reduced to information so I could have any sense of having survived from 
a time in the past. I don't see any reasonable basis for an 
extra-informational notion of survival. And it does not seem true or 
reasonable, strictly speaking, to say that I (today) *am* the same as some 
past person, but that I *was* that past individual.

So, applying this thinking, I can see a resolution to the "multiple brains" 
problem above (whether it happens to be acceptable to others or not). If we 
generated different copies of me, each with memories faithfully 
encoded,  then all would equally feel they *were* the past individual, and 
the logical contradiction that would occur if all said they *are* the past 
individual could be avoided. The copies would diverge with time (probably 
very quickly in fact) and become quite different individuals, yet could 
still claim, without contradiction, that, so far as their memories and such 
are concerned, they once *were* one and the same individual, even though 
they now are not the same as each other. In short we would have a 
fissioning of one individual into more than one (as I've said before). 
Perhaps there is something about "inner, subjective life" that is supposed 
to preclude the possibility of fissioning? But to me the only survival is 
through memories and such (information, in short). I really think that 
anything "deeper" than this doesn't occur, whatever the precise history of 
the lump of gray matter (or some other construct) that "runs" the person 
may be. If there is a "self" that cannot pass through the information 
bottleneck, well, it probably dies very quickly and one should not worry 
over it--or not very much. (Granted, of course, we want to thoroughly 
investigate this and all other relevant matters before attempting any 
reanimations.)

Richard appears to be saying, in effect, that a sufficiently well-vitrified 
brain at cryogenic temperature would be a functioning QE, just slowed down. 
I find that hard to swallow; Robert Ettinger's comments were well-put. 
Richard also says that the original person survives if the atoms are 
replaced gradually while he/she is unconscious, including (adequately) 
cryopreserved. My intuition says this would be no different from sudden 
replacement, again while unconscious, where the original by his reckoning 
cannot survive.

Again, I think "we" survive through information, and information is not 
arbitrary. Rational beings will probably have minds that are similar in 
basic ways, so different ones of them could be expected to reach similar 
conclusions about the meaning of well-encoded texts (describing a movie, 
for instance) with which they are unfamiliar. This to me suggests an 
intrinsic meaning of the information rather than an unreasonable, enforced 
conformity in those who would do the interpreting. Enough said for now.

Best to all,
Mike Perry

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