X-Message-Number: 3680
Date: Fri, 13 Jan 1995 14:53:37 -0500
From: 
Subject: SCI. CRYONICS experiments

Neuroscientist Joseph Strout asks how the experimentalist can look for the
"self circuit"--my term for that portion or aspect of the brain or its
functions that constitutes or permits feeling, qualia, consciousness, being,
the subjective condition. He then answers his own question, in part, by
noting some of the things that have been investigated to some extent, such as
 locales or events in the brain correlated with awareness or changes in
awareness. Perhaps I can make a few additional suggestions.

(As an aside, I don't think "self-awareness" is what we are looking for, just
awareness. "Self-awareness" suggests an abstract notion of self,
understanding of the use of the pronoun "I," and this may be absent (for
example) in young children, even though they are conscious. I seem to have
dim memories of struggling with the concept myself as a very young child.)

So what are we looking for? It isn't necessarily well localized, although its
probable presence in lower mammals, at least, suggests we look first in some
older parts of the brain, but for something with good connections to other
parts of the brain for inputs. The limbic system has been suggested.

Despite its being perhaps not well localized, it may have a fairly definite
structure, vaguely like an electronic circuit, which can run on a more or
less self-contained basis (homeostasis) but also can accomodate inputs or
outside influences (vaguely like a diode made into a triode). It should also
have plenty of potential for positive and negative feedback.  We are looking
for something that is stable, yet sensitive and adaptable.

Perhaps we should also look for two basic modes of expression--"good" and
"bad," or pleasure and pain. I suspect that feeling arose on this basis, then
developed or elaborated into many subcategories, eventually even developing
feedback perversions such that pain can feel good in some sense, as in
masochism.

We might also look for connections between habit circuits and the self
circuit. This is because we have been conditioned so that many of us, much of
the time, automatically respond to certain cues--even verbal cues--with a
"good" or "bad" reaction, approval or revulsion.

Another obvious place to look is in the effects of sleep and of anaesthesia.
We are looking for something that is NOT turned off by sleep, but IS
(probably) turned off by anaesthesia. (Only "probably" because it has been
suggested that, in anaesthesia, we do feel pain, but can't do anything about
it and don't remember it afterward.)

Naturally, I realize that these "suggestions" are only partly baked and
totally lacking in experimental specifics. But it's like Will Rogers said,
when he suggested getting rid of German U-boats in WW1 by boiling the
Atlantic Ocean: "I'm just the idea man; the engineers will have to do the
rest."

Robert Ettinger
Cryonics Institute
Immortalist Society

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