X-Message-Number: 11535
From: Thomas Donaldson <>
Subject: more on emulation versus reality; we are not so unreadable any more
Date: Sat, 10 Apr 1999 22:55:47 +1000 (EST)

Hi again!

As expected, this is for Mike Perry again:

Well, I hope this does not bore too many on Cryonet! I will add that this
discussion actually goes to the heart of what at least some people believe
about cryonics: that we will awaken as emulations of ourselves in
computers, rather than as flesh-and-blood creatures, AND that as
emulations we will have far more opportunities for new experiences and new
pleasures than any non-emulated creature. Those who do not believe this
may also be interested, since it discusses the arguments against this
thesis.

In any case: in any practical sense, the "unresolvable issues" do not
exist. Even now we can read off from a cooperative subjects brain a very
rough idea of what they are thinking and feeling. Several different means
to do this exist, such as MRI and others. Someone who is the subject of
such a study can always maintain that he was thinking and feeling
something entirely different, and in a PHILOSOPHICAL sense that may be
so --- but with everything we now know, his arguments would be pretty damn 
thin.

In this sense the idea that no one can really tell what you are thinking
and/or feeling is simply false. It's still true that they can't tell just
what your thoughts or feelings feel like TO YOU, but that also comes close
to a meaningless question. If I am unhappy is my unhappiness the same 
feeling as your unhappiness, or do you, when unhappy, by some different
circuits feel what I would feel if I felt joyful? Clearly in my terms you
would then want to seek unhappiness and avoid joy, but since the brain
areas activated in you are likely to be the same as in me, just what this 
might mean comes close to NOTHING.

As I've said in my previous postings, it may or may not be possible to
emulate a human being in a nonbiological form. At the simplest level, the
neural net circuits which human beings have would have to be emulated
by those of the new form, and those circuits involve constant growth and
destruction of connections on a large scale ... and moreover that growth
and destruction does not match ie. there is no fixed number of active
connections. I doubt that such neural nets could be made from 
off-the-shelf components. Our brains, of course, show that such neural
nets can be made. 

			Best and long long life to all,

				Thomas Donaldson

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