X-Message-Number: 3860 Date: Thu, 16 Feb 1995 22:07:05 -0800 From: John K Clark <> Subject: SCI.CRYONICS Uploading -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Joseph J. Strout Wrote: >On the other hand, it is not clear how much of that minute >detail is really necessary for the larger-scale behavior of an >organism. Much of it, no doubt, is kludy >solutions to the problems of working with biological materials. I agree completely, in addition the neurons must perform all the other humdrum but complex functions that other cells do just to stay alive. >the most basic signals in a neuron spread electrotonically, >i.e. at the speed of light. Electromagnetic interactions occur at the speed of light in neurons just as they do in all matter, even rocks, but their not signals unless they convey information. >Moreover, if you increased the speed of action potentials >while keeping the same speed of light, you'd completely change >the dynamics of the system. In this case I was treating neurons as black boxes and feel no guilt in doing so because a neuron in the brain treats other neurons as black boxes. A neuron has no way of knowing or caring about the internal workings of another neuron, it's only interested in it's input output relationship. If all the black boxes were speeded up by the same amount , as we do when we increase the clock frequency of a computer, the dynamics of the system does not change, it just becomes faster. (Thomas Donaldson) Wrote: >If you include everything that our brains do in "information >processing".what you say is valid. But of course that > means that an internal combustion engine does >"information processing" The brain itself is not very interesting it's just a lump of tissue ,but one of the things the brain does is fascinating. The brain does all sorts of things, some of them trivial (occasionally absorbing neutrinos ) and some vital but dull (basic cell metabolism) and most of the brain functions have nothing to do with information processing. The one brain function were interested in is called MIND and it has everything to do with information processing. >The moths flying into light are an illustration of the speed >with which adaptation occurs, not the opposite. I don't understand the reasoning behind this statement. >It's only recently that we had so much energy at our >disposal that lights became a danger to moths. That's true, it's only been a few thousand years, just a blink of an eye for evolution. > No doubt with time they will evolve away from that. I too have no doubt about that, just give them a million years or so. Perhaps by then hedgehogs will have found a better response than rolling up into a ball when confronted by their major predator, the automobile. The only problem is that by then there won't be any automobiles. >I assume you have heard of genetic algorithms? I have, and I've also heard they haven't produced anything very useful yet, it works best with tiny programs like viruses so Microsoft isn't very interested, but I don't want to be too negative though, the technique may have some value because we don't yet know how to make an intelligent machine and it might be cheaper to use GA than hire a human programmer for some problems. >just because evolution has not produced things to suit OUR >values is not a reason to believe that it is ineffective. A moth flying into a candle flame does not improve it's overall fitness and I think a moth would agree with me. > if computers no longer behave alike, then the whole notion of >information processing, which after all came from >computers, will disappear too. Computers never behave alike unless they have the same programming, that's why there so interesting. "Bruce Zimov" <> Wrote: >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. I said that the simplest part of the mind is something that changes in only one way or something that doesn't change at all. If not that what is the simplest part of the mind, have you found something that changes in less than zero ways? >Obviously, such a view does not imply anything about the >metaphysically bankrupt non-material views. That's far from obvious. If the essence of mind is something that's irreducible, unfathomable, unchanging and hence immortal then I don't see one bit of difference between it and traditional Christian dogma about the soul. >You said a few posts ago that you don't believe our >subjectivity can be stored in a book. I NEVER said any such thing because I don't think it's true. I said a program for a thermostat written on a piece of paper was not a thermostat unless it was implemented and running on a computer, I never said you couldn't store it on a piece of paper. I've said many times that my essence could be stored on a computer so it would be ludicrous to say the information could be stored on magnetic tape but not on paper. I could be stored in a book but that book would not be me because nothing in the book changes and a mind that is always static is not a mind. You'd have to put the information into a computer ( or Searle's Chinese Room) for it to become dynamic and my consciousness to return. >Our brains function subjectively independent of semantic >representation.[...] So, what are the intrinsic criteria that >would allow bit patterns to emerge subjectively? Lewis Carroll satirized your viewpoint in one of his dialogues, in it the tortoise proves that nothing is capable of reasoning, not machines, not animals and not humans. The tortoise says that before you can make even the smallest step in reasoning you must make use of a logical law at a higher level to justify it, but that higher level rule is also a step in reasoning requiring justification from an even higher level, a infinite regress thus reasoning is unattainable. Pretty good reasoning considering it's impossible, especially for a tortoise. The solution is that at the lowest level all hardware, biological or electronic obey the laws of physics and you don't need justification to obey the laws of physics. >The brain doesn't use bit patterns. It uses patterns of ion >conductance around a material neural network. A computer doesn't use bit patterns, it uses patterns of electron concentration in a material semiconductor. Exactly what is it about ion conductance that allows it and only it to generate consciousness? John K Clark -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.i iQCzAgUBL0Q3K303wfSpid95AQHy+wTwkHDpmu9VFvjhhV/ZvJDNkukMYkZtRab4 yqOgwWeCgNbnF9MCisj/LTHP8tlMbT2OwaoGjhsNnJYQdzvN8+/gR139Smser54/ +xXRci7/blMxBkcoG5crJ9yv2c54i4Z4F34k5XIX0VwyLkg2zAltSHc4osaLIQcl L2xJH5UEXb9euMM7Z4c7vkQ73K2bsnfz7svs2xsvV1LjXdbf0m4= =QJN9 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=3860