X-Message-Number: 11138
From: "John Clark" <>
Subject: The Self Circuit
Date: Tue, 19 Jan 1999 12:57:26 -0500

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In #11101   on Thu, 14 Jan 1999 Wrote:

    >I forgot to add that the "self circuit" does not
    >solve the problem of criteria of survival, because
    >it does not resolve the "paradoxes" of continuity.

I can dream up some strange situations involving survival and continuity
but I can't think of any paradoxes.

    >But  it does tend to weaken any concept of survival
    >through duplicates, because it tends to support the intuition that
    >a person at another location cannot be you.

Why not just build another person with another  identical "self circuit"?

I've never understood why this "self circuit" idea of yours is needed
any more than we need a "Beethoven circuit" to explain how my radio
can receive the Fifth Symphony.

You say The Turing Test doesn't work because it can't detect the
"self circuit", that means the "self circuit" doesn't effect behavior,
so how and why did random mutation and natural selection ever
produce it, and even if it did why didn't genetic drift destroy it long
ago? I've asked this very important question many, many times on
Cryonet but I've never received a serious answer.

One last remark, passing The Turing Test is certainly not absolute
proof of consciousness, it's just the best test for it that is available,
that's why it's called the Turing test not the Turing proof.

            John K Clark     

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