X-Message-Number: 14743
Date: Fri, 20 Oct 2000 16:28:56 +0200
From: Henri Kluytmans <>
Subject: identity and the alchemist quest for gold

Rafi Haftka wrote:

>The long debate about identity appears to be a bit premature. Hundreds 
>years ago, when people did not know much about chemistry and nuclear 
>physics, many believed that they could make gold from other materials. We 
>are probably at this stage with respect to the question of whether you can 
>duplicate people, upload them into computers, or even have conscious 
>intelligent computers.

I disagree. These are not valid analogies.

We do know a lot more about the brain now, than those people hundreds of 
years ago knew about physics and chemistry. Actually they knew almost 
nothing about chemistry back then. They didnt even know about the 
building blocks of physics (all elementary particles) and chemistry 
(atomic nuclea and electrons), and im not even mentioning their poor 
knowledge of physical forces. However currently we do know what building 
blocks constitute our brain (neurons) although we do not know every small 
detail about the neurons, we do understand their basic functioning. 
Also we do know a lot about the elementary particles of physics and 
the physical forces and laws. Because physical conditions in the human 
body do not seem to be extreme, current physical theories should 
be valid (i.e. all mechanims in the human body should submit to the 
laws of physics). No new physics is required for explaining the 
functioning of our body. 

So we do know a whole lot more about the human brain than people 
hundreds of years ago new about chemistry and physics. 

Although we cannot "prove" anything yet, we can debate about 
which mechanisms are likely (and which are not) considering 
our current understanding of neurobiology and physics.

So I consider a debate not premature.

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