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

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