X-Message-Number: 8087
Date: Wed, 16 Apr 1997 08:32:00 -0700
From: "Joseph J. Strout" <>
Subject: CRYONICS Re: Chinese feeling

In msg #8080, Robert Ettinger writes:

>On signal, the operator begins to
>compute and record all subsequent predicted changes in you and your
>environment, using longhand notations.
>
>...the info
>people, if they are consistent, will have to claim that this system somehow
>not only understands what is (would be) going on, but has the appropriate
>FEELING or subjectivity...
>
>But how do they get around the time problems? In the real world, many events
>are simultaneous, not sequential. Furthermore, we have placed no restrictions
>on the operator's work schedule; he may work fast (for him), or slowly, or
>intermittently with lots of R & R breaks. WHEN does the system feel a quale?
>What happens during the operator's breaks? What happens (subjectively) during
>the progress of a calculation or notation? What happens if the operator just
>stops after a while and never completes a sequence of calculations?

I don't think that breaks or slow working are a serious problem; surely any
system can (in principle) be stopped and restarted, or run at any speed,
without being aware that anything strange is going on.  That is, perhaps
God (or aliens hiding behind Hale-Bopp) had stopped the universe as you
were in the middle of reading this sentence -- just (figuratively) froze it
in place for a day, then restarted it where it left off; how would you know?

However, I will admit that there *may* be important differences between
massively parallel, analog machines like our brains, and a sequential
Turing-like computer.  However, if you allow sufficiently big enough Turing
machines to run sufficiently big simulations (ab adsurdum, probably), then
it seems a bit of a stretch to suppose that the differences would remain
significant.

The difficulty with the poor operator making pencil marks on cards, of
course, is that he would have to work tirelessly for billions of years to
simulate a few milliseconds of real time.  That's not enough enough time
for a sensory impression to reach the cortex, much less generate qualia.

Best regards,
-- Joe

,------------------------------------------------------------------.
|    Joseph J. Strout           Department of Neuroscience, UCSD   |
|               http://www-acs.ucsd.edu/~jstrout/  |
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