X-Message-Number: 14719 Date: Tue, 17 Oct 2000 23:05:07 +0200 From: Henri Kluytmans <> Subject: The Mind and Identity : Don't take me apart David Pizer wrote : >Saying the duplicate is the original, because of the memory information >alone, and not addressing the personal nature of the meat (whose meat - >mine or it's?) that "feels" the memory when trying to demonstrate that all >a person is is memory, seems to me to be begging the question. Please note : "Information and memory are two different things". Although memory is information, there are also other kinds of information. Information is a more general term. A stored mind is not only memory, it also contains other kinds of information. >On the other hand, just as many of us are not comfortable with the >patterns of information only definition of selfhood, This is not an objective rational justification to dismiss the idea that our mind is an information process. >As far as cryonics reanimation scenarios where the brain is taken apart >atom by atom to take mesurments to make a new device that is to replace the >original brain, that is not a way I understand that sounds like survival. My scenario was different : Your body is taken apart atom by atom. All the atoms are labeled when they are stored away. The locations of every atom are stored in a database. Then the body is build up again, atom by atom, to its original state. Every original atom is put in its old place. The body is reanimated. So no new device is made! The old device (body) is restored! According to physics there should be no difference. Even if different atoms would be used, there would still be no difference according to physics. When you claim that this scenario is not survival, you are in fact claiming that new physics is required for describing the human body. Of course this is always possible, although very (VERY) unlikely. Physical conditions in the human body do not seem to be a very extreme. Like Carl Sagan mentioned : Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. 1) Do you claim that your atoms are special and not interchangeable ? 2) Do you claim that new physical forces yet unknown are required to explain identity or "me" ? Cheers, >Hkl Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=14719