X-Message-Number: 8559 Date: Sun, 7 Sep 1997 21:54:01 -0700 (PDT) From: Olaf Henny <> Subject: Our minds are human, but not all our humanness is in our brains Message #8547 From: John P. Pietrzak: >That is the basic rationale behind the test. To my mind, however, >the ability to mimic a human pattern of responses to queries across >a network connection is not sufficient to encompass the intelligence >of a human. Initially, many early successes in AI seemed to mimic >intelligence: programs could play chess and checkers, discover >mathematical proofs, diagnose diseases. Certainly, the humans who >did these things were considered "intelligent". It is quite conceivable to me, that in the vastness of this universe there are highly intelligent races who have thought patterns, which are quite different from ours. Should we encounter some of them within the next century or two, then it will most likely be, because they came to us. Our technology will not be sufficiently developed, for it to be otherwise. The funny part is, that they will probably fail your TT. :-) Message #8549 From: Thomas Donaldson: >Are brains computers? Are very much improved brains computers? >For that matter, biotechnology already has a richness to it that >dwarfs present nanotechnology of other kinds. I suspect those >who want to come back uploaded into a computer think of them as >mythical entities capable of many different things impossible >otherwise. Heck, they're not BIOLOGICAL. (No snot, no sweat, all >those other things ...). Yet many biological things (emotions, >perhaps?) we want to retain; and as for wastes and being subject >to various attacks by other creatures, computers have even now >begun to be attacked. Wastes, of course, will always be with us. >Is it better to shit out used semiconductors or used biological >waste? You tell me. Well it is good to hear somebody in this debate, who does not think, that by uploading into a computer our whole personality is preserved. Certainly the most important component of the "I" is contained in our brains, but we are not a purely cerebral beings. When I am revived I want to take with me all the other components of my 'self', my fears, my adrenaline turn-ons, my hopes, my anxieties, my sensualities, the comfort of a hug, my sexuality, both in giving and in taking, and the optimism, which permits us all to pursue life extension and cryonics in the first place, in fact all the irrationalities, which set us humans apart from computers. If we are uploaded, we will have no doubt ample excess computing capacity left to strictly assess every move we make in terms of probability of success. Our life will be as dry as the - ahhmm - exhalation of an Egyptian mummy and as exciting as watching laundry dry. We will know when we have completed a task successfully, but will we get a *charge* out of it? No, I am afraid I want my glandular system with me, with all the mix-up its contradicting hormones bring to me. It may not enhance the intelligence, which has been given so much predominance here recently, but it will give me my 'humanness' and for that I will accept a small curtailment of my intelligence potential. Olaf Henny Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=8559