X-Message-Number: 3855
Date: Wed, 15 Feb 1995 19:33:23 -0500
From: "Bruce Zimov" <>
Subject: SCI.CRYONICS: Uploading


 
John, I wasn't going to jump into this mess, but your step 6
is your critical mistake in understanding what information is.
Actually, the fallacy you commit in 6 explains a lot about where
you are at.
 
John Clark writes:
 
>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.
 
The choice you have given is a false one. You have said that either
the simplest part of your subjectivity is a bit which can flip (change),
or the simplest part of your subjectivity is a non-changing non-material
substance. This choice is laughable, and untrue. One can reasonably
hold that a bit is an incomplete representation of ANYTHING, in itself,
because of its missing semantics, no matter what its function is as
a switch. Obviously, such a view does not imply anything about the
metaphysically bankrupt non-material views.
 
If this really is your logic, then I believe you should hit the books
and seek a deeper justification for your view.
 
You said a few posts ago that you don't believe our subjectivity can
be stored in a book. I agree. I urge you to examine why you believe that. 
You may find some insight into the nature of information and its relation
to what we are.
 
Our brains function subjectively independent of semantic representation.
If you had 2 bits, you would have 4 bit patterns, SYNTACTICALLY. 
Functionally, those 2 switches, and their 4 states could be hooked up
to anything, light switches, VCRs...anything. Their function is
determined by extrinsic factors of what they are hooked up to. Likewise,
independent of function, they can represent messages to observers who
would decrypt their states with a key. Any one bit pattern could mean
one thing to one person, and another thing to another person.  Again,
extrinsic criteria determine the semantic meaning of the bit pattern.
 
Any use of extrinsic criteria to attempt to transform bit patterns 
into subjective entities will fail due to the sufficiency requirement
that the bit patterns themselves must be instrinsically complete.
 
So, what are the intrinsic criteria that would allow bit patterns to
emerge subjectively? Just appealing to complexity won't do because
its too broad a brush.  There can be objects more complex or as 
complex as the brain that are not subjective.  In fact, even the
brain when in deep sleep is not in the subjective (wake) state, but
it "will become awake again" usually.  Whether or not the wake/sleep
cycle is an example of "storage" of anything, I will leave open.
 
The brain doesn't use bit patterns. It uses patterns of ion conductance
around a material neural network.  These material patterns are
intrinsically sufficient for subjectivity. To represent these as bits
would require an EXTERNAL key to decrypt their description. Instead, one 
should arrange the switches (bits) so that they function subjectively, 
i.e. be hooked up to material systems to not only produce behaviour but
inner experience as well. This last course is, of course, replacement
of parts to place the brain on an anaerobic basis, something I advocate.
 
However, and most importantly, in this last case of replacement, NO
intermediate representation requiring a key is used. So, no transfer
or storage as information occurs. Any storage as information
is mere description, AND equivalent to the case of being stored on paper 
in a book.
 
Bruce Zimov




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