X-Message-Number: 4072
From: 
Date: Thu, 23 Mar 1995 11:54:33 -0500
Subject: SCI. CRYONICS Feeling

Brian Wowk (#4066) does not, I think, have my position quite right in a
couple of respects:

 I do NOT say that "...consciousness may depend on the MEDIUM that processes
information, not just the information processing itself."  
First, I am talking primarily about FEELING, which is the basis of
consciousness (hence the ground of being) but does not in itself in all cases
constitute what we usually mean by consciousness. Consciousness (generally)
is the integration of feeling and computing. Raw feeling (pain, pleasure
etc.) is the simplest type of consciousness, but rarely exists in isolation
from thoughts, and the thoughts involve information processing.

FEELING is NOT necessarily information processing at all, at least not in the
sense of a Turing machine. A particular feeling might conceivably--just as
one vague possibility--be a STATE or CONDITION in the brain: possibly a
particular distribution of chemicals or/and an electromagnetic resonance or
standing wave.

In this connection, it is slightly interesting to note that, in a recent book
called VITAL DUST: LIFE AS  A COSMIC IMPERATIVE (Basic  Books, 1995) the
author, Nobel laureate biologist Christian de Duve, repeats suggestions that
(at least some types of) feeling may represent a physical "resonance" in the
circuitry of the brain.

(No, I don't expect any such discussion to convince the committed uploaders
or information-paradigmers. They will simply repeat that a Turing machine
could produce an isomorphism, and they will ASSUME that the isomorphism is as
good as the original. They will simply DISREGARD and NOT ADDRESS the
possibility that a simultaneous, real-time action of several parts may be
essential for feeling, and that this is not possible for a Turing machine--or
that feeling may depend on CHEMISTRY, which may limit the possible
substrates.)

When we know the physical/physiological basis of feeling in mammals we will
then know at least sufficient conditions for feeling. The question of
necessary conditions may very well also be illuminated then--but maybe not.

Now Brian's scenario--incremental brain modification until it is no longer
biological, and the question of when it ceases to be conscious (assuming
external behavior remains the same):

First, this scenario may not be possible. If feeling requires meat, then
removing the meat, or changing it too much, will destroy the feeling. Since
humans have evolved to function with feeling, removing the feeling (while
leaving other parts/aspect of the brain unchanged) will probably make it
impossible for them to function normally. 

Further, gradualism (breadboard circuit changes) may not be possible in
dealing with feeling. Just as pregnancy is (more or less) an all-or-nothing
proposition, so also the self circuit may (essentially) just exist or not,
with no partial feeling possible. 

Of course, if the changes are effected by an agent so advanced and
knowledgeable that a very fast "equivalent" mechanism could be substituted
for the self circuit, then conceivably we could have the problem situation, a
system that claims to be conscious but (possibly) isn't. The answer to this
will probably have to wait at least until we know the basis of mammalian
feeling.

Again, I do not deny the POSSIBILITY of the information paradigm, or the
possibility that the problem may in practice prove intractable, at least for
a long time. What I assert is that the self circuit necessarily exists, that
it is the most important of all scientific questions, and that it MAY demand
an organic substrate.

Robert Ettinger

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