X-Message-Number: 32546
References: <>
Date: Tue, 6 Apr 2010 11:31:14 -0700 (PDT)
From: 2Arcturus <>
Subject: Analogies & Thought Experiments

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It's not good to argue from analogy, but an analogy can help explain. When we 
think of a song, we are thinking of something that is not an object, even though
the sound is physical and our brain's processing of the sound is material. No 
one would confuse sheet music for a song, the notes and bars on a page - but the
sheet music is very useful for reproducing the song, if you have the right 
instrument and know how to play it (and if you know how to read sheet music). 
Talented musicians, playing on good instruments, can render that song anytime, 
anywhere. No one would confuse a song with one single instance of that song - 
"That's not the Moonlight Sonata! My sister played the Moonlight Sonata last 
February, and this is April!" In a way, people's minds are like songs; they can 
be rendered on equivalent "instruments." The analogy breaks down, of course, if 
pushed. People are not like delimited songs, with a strict pattern from a 
beginning to an end; they are

 more like jazz improvisations, with no necessary ending point, incorporating 
 cues from the band and audience, and reworking old themes.


Now, if we believe the brain gives rise to the mind, we have to ask why a 
functional equivalent of the brain would not give rise to the same mind. We 
might have to suppose, without any reason for supposing this, that the brain has
some sort of unbreakable 'digital rights management' on the mind, that prevents
it from being played on any other brain, a kind of hardware key that identifies
and requires *this* particular body. We might suppose that the brain gives rise
to mind by some sort of material substrate which cannot be emulated, or whose 
function cannot be reproduced. As Kurzweil pointed out, even if consciousness 
depended on a standing wave, a standing wave can be emulated. Even if the 
standing wave were a quantum effect, which is very unlikely, in theory it could 
be quantum computed. Or maybe one could suppose that the brain does not give 
rise to the mind; that consciousness depends on some sort of magical 
quintessence that has nothing to do with

 the body - the supernatural soul. But there is just no reason for supposing any
 of this. If the mind arises from the activity of the brain, then a brain which
 replicates that functional activity should give rise to the same mind - with 
 all the same qualitative, subjective experience of consciousness.


As I think Moravec suggested, in a thought experiment, a person could be 
transferred from one body to another by bringing one small part of the mind 
offline in one body while bringing it online in the other, piece by piece, while
conscious. If the nervous systems of the two bodies were synced, the person 
could literally carry on a conversation without pausing while this was taking 
place. This would go a long way, I think, to answering the "gut instinct" 
objection, because then people could actually feel, observe, and experience the 
continuity of thought and physical embodiment from one substrate to another.



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