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

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