X-Message-Number: 7905 Date: Thu, 20 Mar 97 12:44:20 From: Mike Perry <> Subject: Re #7889-7899 On Olaf Henny's problem: He seems to think that there are two alternatives only: (1) you preserve only your CNS or brain, and you come back without your endocrine system, and you NEVER recover that, so you are deficient thereafter in emotions, etc. or (2) your endocrine system is preserved all along and restored along with the rest of you. It doesn't seem to occur that there is a third alternative, which is, that your endocrine system is not preserved, but is *recreated* from information (such as that found in DNA) that *is* preserved. Dolly the sheep has a complete (sheep) endocrine system--yet she certainly didn't start with one--and it is (presumably) the same, within close limits, as that of her "mother" from which she was cloned. So why would it be essential to preserve the human endocrine system in cryopreservation? Why not just recreate it at the appropriate time? Bob Ettinger says, >Suppose feeling & >subjectivity depend on a specific feature of brain anatomy/physiology, >say (oversimplifying) a particular kind of resonance or standing wave >in the electrochemistry of some part or aspect of the brain (whether >local or distributed). Variations in this PHYSICAL condition may >CONSTITUTE our feelings of pleasure/pain etc. Certain things have to >happen or exist in a small region of spacetime. It is entirely >conceivable (and I suspect probably true) that the possible substrates >for such are extremely limited--maybe even limited to organic >systems....And finally, for the umpteenth time, to say that an >emulation or model of the self circuit would be in some sense the same >as, or as good as, the original is just an empty assertion, not a >logical conclusion or demonstrated fact." To me an ongoing computation that fully *describes* an ongoing process is "as good" in some reasonable sense, as the actual process. If a person were emulated in this way (ignoring for the moment that this might have to be a *very* complex program, require a lot of computer time, space, etc., and be far beyond our present capability) I could converse with the entity being emulated through an appropriate hookup, and, done appropriately, it would seem in all respects like a person, so I would accept it as a person. (And note that being an emulation would open certain possibilities; it would no longer be necessary that certain elements of the process be in close spacetime proximity, so long as appropriate communication links were maintained.) But that wouldn't "prove" it was a person, or even remotely conscious (whatever that should mean). Perhaps my claim that this was a person, with feeling, consciousness, etc., would forever stand as an "empty assertion, not a logical conclusion or determined fact" to the dedicated doubter. One is reminded of the "day person" hypothesis, attributed to Thomas Nagel, that basically, we die each time we lose consciousness: the person that wakes up, though similar in so many ways to the one that fell asleep, is still a different being entirely! This would be handy for certain people: e.g. a bank robber could snooze, and say "*I* didn't do it!" And I suppose there are people who really feel this way, that you could never convince otherwise by any amount of argument. "The day person hypothesis," they might say, "fits all the experimental evidence you can muster, and it feels right to me, so I adopt it." As for Ockham's razor (where we try to minimize the amount of unnecessary hypotheses in our explanations of things) they might say, "Why make the extra assumption that there is this special 'identity' link between me when I just woke up and started my life, and this other being I may happen to know a lot about?" For me, on the other hand, there are certain hypotheses that seem to fit reality and also seem right at the gut level, that I adopt, one being that "an emulation, treated appropriately, is as good as the 'real' thing." (I could argue at greater length here, but let me go on before I doze off!) Thomas Donaldson writes: >For all practical purposes, Tipler is wrong. We do not even know if >the universe is finite. A finite object, acted on by an infinite >variety of inputs, will behave in an infinite variety of ways. Tipler >has said some highly percipient things about the universe, but that >just isn't one of them." The question I've tried to address in referring to Tipler is whether finite domains in the universe are, in effect, finite state machines. (I didn't try to address the question of whether the universe is finite or infinite. In fact Tipler argues it is inifinite--in total energy content though not spatial extent. That, exactly as he has stated, may be questionable, but I think the conclusions about finite subsets of the universe are on firmer footing.) If a person, in effect is a finite-state machine, as quantum theory seems to say, the machine itself might have to be very large, but it can be that way if needed. We don't worry overmuch about "practical" considerations here! And, if we can be immortal, as we hope, someday things will be"practical" to us that are not at all thay way now! As for the assertion that "A finite object, acted on by an infinite variety of inputs, will behave in an infinite variety of ways," with a finite-state machine, there can't be an infinite variety of inputs--those are limited just like the number of states. The only way to violate this would be to invoke immortality--over infinite time, a person who is truly immortal cannot be described as a finite-state machine. (Such a machine exhibits the "Eternal Return" in which some finite state space is occupied forever--not true immortality.) But this is over infinite time. So overall you could have a universe that is infinite but still "digital" in the sense that its finite subprocesses (bounded in energy content and spatial extent) behave as finite-state machines. But the thrust of Thomas's arguments in his posting (not just what I've quoted) seems to be that the world is nondigital in some fundamental way--and when you confine yourself to digital processes, you lose some fundamental "essence"--so such processes could never exhibit feeling and awareness, no matter how complex they are. (Somebody correct me if this assessment is wrong!) It looks in fact as if Thomas is saying that digital process could not exhibit *any* feeling or awareness--qua digital processes at least--only nondigital ones can do that. (Again correct me if I'm wrong.) On the other hand, if everything is digital, even if it has to be very complex-digital, this argument is pretty thoroughly overturned. Peter Merel writes, >Mike Perry writes, > >>Well, according to physics, every system bounded in spatial extent >>and energy content is a finite-state machine (for an extended >>discussion see Tipler, *The Physics of Immortality*, esp. pp. 20-44). >> > >This was one of the parts of Tipler's book that I found most >unconvincing. Every brand of quantum theory I've ever heard about >involves universe-wide non-locality; perhaps I'm missing something >obvious, but I can't see how non-locality and finite-state machines go >together. Many-worlds upholds locality. Effects that require a non-local explanation with other theories do not require such an explanation with many worlds. This depends on the fact that the correlations that seem to happen at superlight speed cannot be *verified* at superlight speed--they have to be verified by observers moving in more usual ways. If worlds can split, the propagating splits (also not traveling faster than light) can travel ahead of the verifying observers (who also split of course) and "arrange" things approprately in advance--so the apparently non-local correlations are seen. (It might be objected too that many-worlds, even if it does preserve locality, introduces an additional complication--the splitting iself. So we have what are called "non-deterministic finite state machines"--still finite-state machines however, and also still "deterministic" in the sense that we always know what is going to happen.) >Also, did I miss seeing it here, or am I the only one to have read in >this week's New Scientist about the world's first functioning (3 Qbit) >quantum computer? I haven't seen this article yet, but as I've said, progress with the quantum computer tends to support many-worlds. Mike Perry http://www.alcor.org Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=7905