X-Message-Number: 26044 Date: Sun, 17 Apr 2005 23:12:42 -0400 From: Francois <> Subject: For Thomas, about simutaneity Just for the sake of argument, lets say you model a brain in software. All relations in the model parallel the relations in a real physical brain. You then program this model in a sequential, Turing type computer. The model contains a well defined starting state and all the rules to modify that state in time. Lets say we choose to advance the clock in steps of a millionth of a second. The computer starts working, sequentially going through all the parts of the model and applying to them the transformation rules it is programmed with. It builds in its memory a second model of the brain as it would be millionth of a second after the starting state. Once it has completed the task, it takes this new model and repeats the procedure, advancing it by a millionth of a second again, and again, and again. From our point of view, we see a bunch of electrons in a cluster of memory chips being moved around by the computer's CPU. It takes a certain amount of real time for each stage to be completed, and that time depends on how fast the CPU works. A commodore 64 would probably take millenia to complete a single stage. Modern super computers could do it maybe in seconds. Really fast computers could probably be made that would do it in "real" time, advancing the simulation by a millionth of a second in 1 millionth of a second in real time, and a really really fast computer could advance it faster that real time. That doesn't matter really because the simulated brain doesn't care about that. What it experiences is all of its "parts" working and evolving simultaneously. Its subjective experience of timeflow is the same as our own within its own virtual world. It is obvious that simulated gasoline, even perfectly simulated gasoline, cannot be used to fill the gas tank of my car, nor will I ever get sunburn from a perfect computer simulation of the sun. But simulated gasoline can be used to fill the simulated tank of a simulated car, and simulated UV photons will damage simulated skin on a simulated person. It's all a question of point of view. I've read somewhere a beautiful little aphorism that perfectly sums it up. "In a virtual world, a virtual dog walking in virtual rain really does get wet." From the point of view of your flesh and blood brain, a perfectly simulated brain is still nothing but sequentially moving electrons. From its point of view, assuming we provide it with an equally well simulated world to live in, it experiences the same kind of life we do. Its simulated sun feels warm on its simulated skin, the simulated food it puts in its simulated mouth is as delicious and fullfilling as our own and if it stubs its simulated toe on a simulated bedpost it feels real pain. All a question of point of view. Can we establish communication with it? Sure we can. All we need to do is project in its world the digital output of a digital camera and microphone, on the virtual screen of its virtual television for instance. That would only require a little bit of very simple programming that is already done routinely in many of today's videogames. We could talk to it and it could talk to us. If the computer running it is fast enough we could even do it in real time. Uploading is not only possible, it is one way of gaining the true immortality we seek. Francois The Devil fears those who learn more than those who pray Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=26044