X-Message-Number: 14797
Date: Sun, 29 Oct 2000 21:13:00 -0500
From: david pizer <>
Subject: Memories are Secondary

Following is a short commonsense example that will drive a stake through
the heart of the theory that only memories (or only patterns of
information) are the sum total of a self.  When this is fully realized the
concept of uploading one's mind will no longer hold any promise, and the
fraility of our condition will be realized.  We can then spend time trying
to preserve and protect our permanent, self-aware-continuing-process.

First let us grant that memories are patterns of information.  Perhaps they
are the way the dendritic spines form after sensory input, (or after
internal reflection), to record, (for later reflection), information in the
synaptic gaps, or perhaps some other pattern or formation of information
which can someday be duplicated is a more correct theory.  But, whatever
way it turns out that memories are recored in various patterns of
information, we can grant that memories *are* some kind of pattern of
information that are  *felt in*  a thing we presently call a human mind.
When we think of information and the separate action of feeling the
information in this way, it is clear to us that the mind is separate from
the memories.  The memories are probably stored in a part of the brain that
is very close to the mind.

Surely, it must be certain that no one on this advanced forum has a problem
separating the concepts of memories from that which percieves them.  It is
because we can only understand these as two separate entities that we know
this to be true.

Then it follows that memories without a mind to percieve them in cannot
exist.  However, a mind can exist without memories, (as in the example below).

Sometimes the mind perceives memories and sometimes there are no memories
in the mind as when it is perceiving the immediate situation directly
through the senses.  That split second where one is walking across the
street while thinking and remembering about the good taste of licking his
ice cream cone a few minutes earlier, to the present awareness of the car
that is running the red light and about to crash into one; as the memory of
the ice cream cone dissapears from perception and no memory is being felt
in the mind, as one is only aware of the immediate (not a memory) situation
of a car coming at a great speed at one.  This is a time when the mind
exists without any memory.  

But there is no situation where a memory exists without the mind;  So it is
clear that the mind is separate and more basic then patterns of information
called memories.

Now that this has been put to rest, we can all of us have a rest.

Dave Pizer

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