X-Message-Number: 4081
From: 
Date: Fri, 24 Mar 1995 20:40:47 -0500
Subject: SCI. CRYONICS continuity/self

Steven Harris (#4070) raises continuity questions in connection with the
"self circuit" and thinks consciousness/nonconsciousness must be a continuum,
one shading into the other on the evolutionary ladder. But I don't think it's
that simple.

I long ago acknowledged the POSSIBILITY that questions of identity or
survival (and now feeling) may be quantitative; instead of "identity" or not
we may just have DEGREES of identity, measured by some suitable criterion or
criteria. In some ways this would be an easy and welcome solution--but let's
look at some of the cautions.

First, although an amoeba may LOOK as though it acts with feeling and
intentionality, as Dr. Harris says, that COULD just be the old anthromorphic
fallacy. After all, even Grey Walter's mechanical tortoises of several
decades ago LOOKED purposeful--and for that matter WERE "purposeful" in the
sense that they had  a programmed goal--but still without a doubt not
conscious. Present-day programmers could probably design improved tortoises
that would seem even more life-like, but still would not have consciousness
claimed for them.

Now, Dr. Harris says flatly that any conscious creature can be made into a
nonconscious one--or vice versa--in many small steps with never a clear
dividing line. But this is only an assumption, and one I do not think is
justified. After all, there is no general principle that says that, if two
physical systems A and B are qualitatively different, one can always be
transformed into the other in small steps with no clear dividing line.

Counter-examples? Let's leave out discrete quantum states; I doubt that
Penrose is right about consciousness arising from quantum phenomena as such.
But in classical physics, among other things, there are resonance phenomena;
the resonance is there or it isn't, with very small margins. A particle
carries a positive or negative charge. Etc. More importantly, there are many
examples in biology.

One example I mentioned recently is pregnancy; "You can't be a little bit
pregnant." One might quibble about this--as when the sperm is part way into
the egg, and so on--but for all practical purposes a woman either is pregnant
or is not. This is a qualitative difference, and a non-trivial one. In almost
all cases we can (after examination) say definitively that she is one or the
other. If a woman wants to be pregnant and isn't, or doesn't want to be and
is, it won't help her any for you to tell her that the only difference is one
of degree--and it won't be true either, except in the most tortured
hair-splitting way.

Other examples? An organism may be unicellular or multicellular; again,
somewhere down the line of evolution there may have been a blurred
transition, but the difference is still real and significant. A chromosome
may include a certain gene or not. Etc. 

Some of the examples above are clear-cut, others less so. As far as I know,
there is no gradual way to change a single positive charge into a single
negative charge, even in principle. Changing pregnancy gradually into
non-pregnancy (before birth) might be conceivable, but this has no practical
importance; we still have a profound qualtiative difference.

My term "self circuit" may not be the best choice, since to Dr. Harris it
suggests that there must be more than one neuron involved. (We don't even
know if neurons are necessary.) That is not important. What is important is
that we KNOW there exists some portion or aspect of the brain or its
functions that constitutes the seat of feeling and hence the ground of being.
Understanding its structure and properties will have profound consequences.

Robert Ettinger


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