X-Message-Number: 25492
Date: Sat,  8 Jan 2005 12:50:37 -0800
Subject: Potential Existence & the Qualia Experiencer, to Robert
From: <>

Dear Robert:

"Although I agree that survival of a duplicate is (probably) not 
your survival, this example doesn't prove it. The duplicates could 
perhaps be  
activated into a dreaming state without sensory input--no different 
views of the environment. At the moment of activation, there need 
not (as far as we know) be any  significant differences, other than 
location, in the brains or their immediate experiences."

My example *does* prove it. That you can construct some thought 
experiment where the absurdity isn't as obvious, doesn't mean the 
thought experiment I mentioned could not be carried out, and if it 
were carried out, the absurd implications would be obvious for all 
to see.

In my example, which is surely feasible if duplication proves to be 
possible, the duplicates are awakened facing different parts of the 
universe, and therefore, will experience different sights. From my 
point of view, when I close my eyes and go to sleep, and then wake 
up again (after destruction and duplication), which view of the 
universe do I see?

The fact that I can ask such a strange question, whose concrete 
answer would involve the postulation of mechanisms and laws that 
applied to mystical essences, indicates the scenario is not 
possible.

I am a brain. Destroy that brain, and I experience no more. 
Duplicate brains may very well experience, but that is not useful 
to me.

Why is materialism so hard for people to accept?

You wrote:

"Not correct. Certainly you have experiences in dreams, and 
probably  unnoticed or unremembered or borderline experiences in 
other 'unconscious'  situations."

Every night there are periods of deep sleep when people do not 
dream, and when I do not experience. If you wish to say I do 
experience during these times, and merely do not remember my 
experience, the burden of proof is on you. 

Not only must you provide evidence for your point of view, but you 
must rebutt the prevailing view, since MRIs and EKGs applied to 
people in deep sleep have not revealed any brain changes known to 
correlate with experience.

Taking it one step further, we can cool the brain and deprive it of 
oxygen and essentially shut it down, so there is no possibility of 
experience, yet we can easily revive the brain with no loss of 
function.

You wrote:

"I guess I haven't made clear my (admittedly still vague) postulate 
of the  self circuit, the idea that qualia (defined as the 
objective phenomena that give rise to subjective experiences) 
consist of modulations of some kind of standing  wave(s) in the 
brain."

There are no objective phenomena that 'give rise' to subjective 
experience. Changes in existing things (of a specific kind) *are* 
identically equal to experience, in the sense that, they are both 
different names for the same thing, just as '2 + 2' is a different 
name for '4'. This is the essense of the identity theory of mind.

You wrote:

"(I also postulate that the qualia constitute your essential self. 
They are not attributes of you or conditions in you--they are you. 
You don't have qualia--you are qualia.)"

This is a choice of terminology, not a good one, I don't think, as 
it easily leads to confusion, such as shown below.

You wrote:

"If this is correct, then when the standing waves are absent you do 
not exist."

On the contrary, if you are the standing waves, then you never 
exist. Standing waves are not something that exists. A wave is 
something that happens to something that exists; i.e. 'wave' is a 
particular name for a kind of change to an existing thing.

Now if you like this definition of 'you'---as something that 
happens to a brain, and not as something that exists---then 
survival criteria should be obvious: if you are what happens to a 
specific brain, then you can no longer happen when that specific 
brain ceases to exist. What does it mean for a specific brain to 
cease to exist? It means the arrangement of the hunk of matter 
changes in such a way that it is no longer a brain, i.e. you can no 
longer happen to the hunk of matter.

You wrote:

"RBR would say you do exist, because the biological mechanism to 
allow 
the phenomenon is still there, waiting to be activated, like a car 
waiting  to be started. But now we are again up against the 
philosophical problem of  potential existence. Is potentially to 
be, to be?"

Here is the confusion caused by your terminology.

You seem to imagine that, under your definition, we *ever* exist. 
Not so. A standing wave cannot exist, not now and not ever. 
Therefore, by your definition of 'I', I never exist. There is no 
potential existence because there is never *any* existence. 

The only question is (under your view), can a standing wave happen 
to this hunk of matter? If the answer is yes, then you can happen 
again. Otherwise, you cannot.

My terminology is much clearer. I am, at my core, a qualia 
experiencer, which is the hunk of matter in my head responsible for 
the experience of qualia---i.e. the hunk of matter in which changes 
of a certain kind are numerically identical to experience. I exist 
as long as this hunk of matter has the properties necessary for it 
to experience qualia.

My subjective inner life happens to me when I am awake, or when I 
am sleeping but dreaming (when I am 'concious'), but not at other 
times. Nor would it happen to if I were perfectly vitrified. I 
would still exist, I would just not be changing in ways identical 
to experience.

[snip]

You wrote:

"Incidentally, the Schrodinger wave equation of conventional 
quantum theory, which some claim to represent basic reality, 
postulates a kind of potential existence as prior to observational 
existence. It supposedly represents physical reality, and yet it 
displays only probabilities of particular observations."

I have derived the Shrodinger equation and many others as a 
student. It doesn't postulate anything. It is a mathematical model 
of the measurement process. Anything beyond that is idle 
speculation.

[snip]

Best Regards,

Richard B. R.

Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=25492