X-Message-Number: 14676 Date: Thu, 12 Oct 2000 13:05:24 +0200 From: Henri Kluytmans <> Subject: Re: sentience in other media (copies and feeling) Ettinger wrote: >We cannot assume the mind depends only on the neural network, >which in any case is much too vague. However, my impression was that most neuro-scientists do assume so... Is this not correct ? >However, on a more fundamental level it is true that, >if you could copy the position of every atom, you could >copy the person, without knowing how the parts work together. OK, I agree. >But that bypasses the two significant questions. >First, as Dave Pizer and many others have said, the >"philosophical" problems have not been solved, and Those philosophical problems are a seperate issue. However, as I stated in my other post to this list, when using the informational definition of identity there do not seem to be any such problems. >it is not clear--and probably not true--that a copy >"ought" to be considered to share your identity. The copy and original do not share *one* identity, they have two identical but seperate identities. At least at the start they are identical, after that they will diverge. >Second, it is not clear, and probably not true, that >sentience (feeling) is strictly a function of "information" >or data processing, in the sense that only isomorphism matters >and any "rendering" of you is you. I see feelings, instincts and emotions as small agents in the human mind. (Like in Marvin Minsky's model of the mind.) This is scientifically the most workable model. And therefore most neuro-scientists seem to use it. >A description of a thing IS the thing ONLY in some cases or >for some purposes; in general, the map is NOT the territory. In case of the mind, a description is not the same as the thing. Because in this case the thing is a continuously changing process. Our mind (at least, when we are not frozen) is a dynamic information process, not just static information. However when in a frozen state, our mind is just information and thus it would then be sufficient to have a description of the thing only. (I suppose you agree...) According to your own statement above, a description of the position and orientation of every atom and/or molecule in a frozen brain should be equal to keeping the frozen brain itself. (Because according to physics identical particles in the same state are interchangeable.) Of course, such a description (of all atoms/molecules) would contain a awfull lot of redundancy. >In particular, if feeling requires (is constituted by) >electrical/chemical standing waves of some sort I still dont understand how those "standing waves of some sort" are constituting feelings. Could you please elaborate? >-- SIMULTANEOUS coordinated changes -- >then not all substrates could produce them, and a Turing tape >never could, which means that no computer ever could. In principle a discrete information processing system like a Turing Machine can approach the behavior of any analog system as close as wanted. (Although not being more energy efficient.) It cannot duplicate the behavior of any analog exactly. But when it can duplicate a system with greater accuracy (resolution) than the noise level it will be sufficient. Anyway the not to close *future* (for example a couple of weeks later) behavior of a human mind is shaped largely by the input it receives from the external world in the mean time, and not by it's internal processes alone. Grtz, >Hkl Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=14676