X-Message-Number: 3849 Date: Tue, 14 Feb 1995 23:17:45 -0800 From: John K Clark <> Subject: SCI.CRYONICS Uploading -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- (Thomas Donaldson) Wrote: >intelligence is what distinguishes us from animals, I agree. >but that does not imply that we wish to upload or preserve >only the information- processing (those responsible for our >intelligence) parts of our brain. Your implying that the information processing is not the essence of feeling, I see no evidence of that. Like a human or other animal a machine, especially a complex machine can have a goal, if it moves toward the goal it acts like it's experiencing pleasure and is happy, if it is moved away from that goal it acts like it is experiencing pain and is sad. Yes, I said "acts like" not "is" because the only emotions we have direct experience of is our own. Let's examen this mysterious ,whatever you want to call it, feeling generator, or self circuit, or subjective circuit or just the non information processing parts of the mind. Since you found my previous post opaque perhaps you'll understand a flow chart . 1) Is what the feeling generator does complex ? If yes go to 2 if no explain how to reconcile that with experience, both objective and subjective. 2) Is the feeling generator itself complex? If yes go to 3 if no then religious people are right, the soul exists, science can't explain it and were wasting our time with cryonics and trying to learn how the brain operates. 3) Is the feeling generator made of parts? If yes go to 4 if no explain how something can be complex yet have no structure. 4) Does the feeling generator operate in an un coordinated, incoherent manner? If no go to 5 if yes explain how to reconcile that with experience, both objective and subjective. 5) Do the parts communicate among themselves? If yes go to 6 if no explain how coordination is possible without communication. 6) Is a part that changes in only one way( a bit) the simplest part of the mind? If yes go to 7 if no then something that does not change at all is the essence of the mind and religious people are right, the soul exists, science can't explain it and were wasting our time with cryonics and trying to learn how the brain operates. 7) Does the feeling generator work by information processing ? If yes then I'm right if no then explain what the difference is. >WE are animals, and our feelings have great value for us. A keen grasp of the obvious ,and I defy anybody to find one word in any of my posts expressing a contrary opinion. >The discussion of intelligence also begs many questions, the >first of which is a definition. Intelligence is a complicated thing, probably the most complicated thing in the universe so it shouldn't be too surprising that none of the definitions of intelligence is entirely satisfactory. That doesn't mean the word is meaningless however, certainly people have no trouble using it in daily usage and meaning is conveyed. Definitions are not the only, or even the most important way we learn new words or concepts we also learn by example. The great thing about The Turing Test is that we don't need to come up with a definition of intelligence, whatever quality it is that we call "intelligence" when we see it in other people it's the same quality when we see it in machines. >It would be nice to specify the abilities which make up >"intelligence" in a noncircular way ie. by referring to our >brain structure. Yes, it would be very nice indeed if we knew more about what some particular brain structures did and didn't do but I don't see how it would help one iota in coming up with a good definition of intelligence. >It does us no good, for instance, to be uploaded into a >computer which (theoretically) reproduces our reactions >perfectly, but 10 times more slowly. In an upload the information signals would be many millions of times faster than a biological brain, the components would be far smaller and the logical architecture would be identical, so why on earth would it run 10 times slower? >WE DON'T YET KNOW AT ALL THAT ANY OTHER COMPUTER STRUCTURE >THAN THAT OF OUR BRAIN WILL REALLY PERFORM >OPTIMALLY in running us. The probability that evolution just happened to stumble upon the optimal solution is astronomically small, but for the sake of argument let's assume it did. In that case use exactly the same computer structure the brain uses , just replace the parts with ones that work a billion times faster. >I personally, in considering our biology, suspect (but would >not hold to it as an axiom) that our present processing speed is >the result of an optimization rather than a result >of the fact that we are made of biological materials. A slow response speed by itself never confers a survival advantage. Turtles survive because the disadvantage of their slowness is outweighed by the advantages of armor and very low fuel requirements. If slow response speed really had a great survival benefit, after a few billion more years of natures "optimization" the processing speed of life would be as slow as rocks. >If electrical circuits were so good for all the purposes we >need them for in our own design, why then do we also have >these OTHER means of transmitting signals? Because once a standard is set, with all its interlocking mechanisms it's very difficult to abandon it completely, even when much better methods are found. That's why we still have inches and yards even though the metric system is clearly superior. Nature is enormously conservative, it may add new things but it doesn't abandon the old because the intermediate stages must also work. That's also why we have all the old brain structures that lizards have as well as new ones. >One would think that they would have become obsolete (ie. >evolved away) long ago. That would be true only if evolution was a perfect designer, it's not, it's a lousy engineer. The only reason its come up with some interesting structures is that it had 4 billion years to fool around with. A few of reasons for natures poor design. 1) Time Lags: Evolution is so slow the animal is adapted to conditions that no longer exist. that's why moths have an instinct to fly into candle flames. 2) Historical Constraints: The eye of all vertebrate animals is backwards. The connective tissue of the retina is on the wrong side so light must pass through it before it hits the light sensitive cells. There's no doubt this degrades vision and we'd be better off if the retina was reversed as it is in squids whose eye evolved independently. It's too late for that to happen now because the intermediate forms would not be viable. 3) Lack of Genetic Variation : Mutation are random and you might not get the mutation you need when you need it. Feathers work better for flight than the skin flaps bats use but bats never produced the right mutations for feathers and skin flaps are good enough. 4) Constraints of Costs and Materials: Life is a tangle of trade offs and compromises. 5) An Advantage on one Level is a Disadvantage on Another: One gene can give you resistance to malaria, a second identical gene will give you sickle cell anemia. The idea that nature is a perfect designer is just a holdover from old religious ideas. John K Clark -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.i iQCzAgUBL0GkmX03wfSpid95AQEydwTwx+BRmddtHuyUYOcEU7sdqVyK4DLHoTOw Hkq3+uHr3ibJcJASWKqLb6Tj8o1DkSAtOjNektpsJSiR2MmAROfNipSpYCZ+8myY 6cLDtdw9TANKO0UW7OyPEyIOgdQtbreklau+EmjiH2BIUHkI6O6naSR5HtDrjkGj VYy5aaFgpJiAXlmdXn/dkM/oEuiMWyKNgfFECukZd58aTdCSfmQ= =j7au -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=3849