X-Message-Number: 7942
From:  (Mike C.)
Subject: Re: Uploading and Personality...Still
Date: Tue, 25 Mar 1997 11:04:10 -0500

>Message #7933
>Date: Mon, 24 Mar 1997 12:52:47 -0800 (PST)
>From: John K Clark <>
>Subject: Uploading

>        >We KNOW that ALREADY robots (computer programs) exist that, to a

>        >limited extent, can converse like people
>
>
>To a very, VERY, limited extent.

Some people can not converse.
Some computers can.

>
>        >we also know they have no slightest consciousness. 
>
>
>We don't "know" that, just as we don't "know" that rocks are not conscious, 
>we strongly suspect they are not sentient because they fail The Turing Test 
>big time, but then, we don't "know" that The Turing Test works.

If a culture was programed to interpret motionlessness 
to represent happiness and contentment, 
based on the idea that when they are happy and content 
they need not fight for survival,
they would see many happy and content rocks.
Can a thing which is not alive be that happy and content?

>
>In #7915   (Thomas Donaldson) On  Fri, 21 Mar 1997 Wrote:
>                    
>        >The problem with chaos is not at the START of the simulation, but

>        >the result when it proceeds.
>                    
>
>True, but what has that to do with our analog verses digital debate?  
>Regardless  of what methods you use, Heisenberg tells us that ANY future 
>version of you will be different than you are right now.

I agree.
I agree too.
So do I.
They may agree but I'm not so sure.
Change your mind and you change your personality.

>                    
>
>        >my main objection came from the distinction between a map and what

>        >was being mapped 
>
>
>A map is made of an object and yes, a map is not the object, but I am not  

>an object either, I am a process. The word "I" should not be a pronoun but an

>adjective, an adjective modifying matter. I am not matter, I am the way matter
>reacts when it's organized in certain complex ways. 

The act of existing requires motion 
and motion requires a thing to be moving.

What is the relation between motion and emotion?

>If the information on how my mind operates 
>is put into a computer and then my body is destroyed
>my consciousness does not stop, 

Imagine...
you are in your body.
You are decapitated.
You lose feeling from the neck down.
You become cold.
You lose your hearing.
You lose your sight.
You are on an emotional roller-coaster.
You think strange things as you only have 3 neurons.
Now you have no neurons.
Do you expect to magickly float on electro-magnetic currents 
towards a computer with a resonant pattern?
What is the link between your body and the computer 
that will allow your consciousness to switch bodies.
If there is no connection 
I am inclined to believe you will experience death 
unless molecules/atoms/particles/etc are conscious.

>if two phonographs are synchronized and playing 
>the same symphony and you destroy one machine, the music does not stop.

The music of one machine does stop, 
though I could argue the once the sound waves are produced 
they bounce around the universe changing forms forever.
        
>
>The fundamental question you have to ask yourself is; are we, our subjective 
>existence, more like bricks or more like symphonies?  I say symphonies. 

Bricks are symphonies of wave-particle interaction.

>
>        >The problem with a simulation of Mike is that it is a symbolic

>        >representation of Mike, and has meaning only  so far as the
symbols         
>        >used have meaning. Ultimately it is human beings who attach
meaning         
>        >to those symbols. 
>                        
>
>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.  

Before one may use reason one must have faith that some thing exists.
There is not a thing which can be proven if no one has faith in proofs.

>
>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. 

Yes, nature needs no law enforcement.

>
>        >It is not asked to fall in love with him, or hate him, or show
anger,         
>        >dismay, and all the other emotions... except symbolically. 
>
>
>True, and that's all we ask of other people, good thing too because that's 
>all we could possibly get. There is no way I can experience your emotions  
>directly,

Unless your a solipsist.

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