X-Message-Number: 14848 Date: Sat, 04 Nov 2000 18:22:26 -0700 From: Mike Perry <> Subject: Mathematics and Personhood Dave Pizer, #14837: "... mathematics is not a good way to have direct knowledge about the universe and conscious beings in it. Mathematics may or may not be a good way for people to have indirect knowledge and to determine *relations* between objects and how these relations *appear* to them (the perceivers), but does not give anyone direct knowledge of any physical (let alone conscious) thing. I believe trying to understand consciousness in mathematical terms is what is giving the mathematicians their incorrect understanding. If we want to really understand living consciousness and individualism we are going to have to do it in another way besides in non-living mathematics." Science is pretty much based on mathematics, so to say we will need something other than mathematics is pretty much saying it will have to be non-scientific, i.e. mystical. I don't go that far, but think that the world is comprehensible in non-mystical, scientific, and rational terms. But actually I think that mathematics could be developed to support Dave's views on personhood, just that most mathematically inclined people to date who have devoted serious thought to the issue have had different points of view (like myself) and haven't pursued this line of development. As I see it, the issue is not one of mathematics versus non-mathematics, but of what choice you prefer among different theories that more or less equally fit the facts and cannot be refuted on that basis. Consider the following, mutually contradictory propositions. 1. The "self" exists for only an instant of time; after that it dies and is replaced by a different person, however similar. 2. The self persists during a period of consciousness but dies with the loss of consciousness, so that what awakens is a different person. 3. The self may survive loss of consciousness, so long as the biological body continues to function. But if you halted this functioning, as with cryopreservation, the self-process is terminated and the person is dead. A reanimation, though successful from a biological and neurological point of view, could never be the same person, but only another, similar person. 4. The self may survive cryopreservation, so long as the frozen body remains intact. But if it is disrupted, you cannot get the original person back even if you put all the same atoms back in their original places. 5. As long as you put the same atoms in the same places, the self can survive. But if you use different though similar atoms, it is not the same person. 6. Whether it is the same person or not depends only on what is going on at the informational level, not on specific pieces of matter or the past history of one sort of "process" or another. All of these points of view can be made to "fit the facts," I think, though doing so will pose challenges of one sort or another, some of them difficult. And probably all these points of view can be defended through appropriate mathematical theories, though again I won't say it would be easy. But clearly we are talking about a choice among different candidate definitions here--you can "name your poison"--or antidote, as the case may be. I especially like 6--it is my choice, and it conforms to the notion of "playing the CD" that was ably presented by Stasys Adiklis (#14836). It imposes the weakest requirements, and therein lies its strength and appeal, though defending it does pose some fascinating challenges and does lead to some startling conclusions. (One is that one person can fission into two or more separate individuals--I have no problem with that however. Something like it happens already with twins that start from one embryo that breaks in two at an early stage of development.) One additional reason I prefer 6 is that it opens the possibility of raising the dead, even those who were not frozen, by creating replica processes, something that may be possible in the far future. I think there are good reasons meanwhile to pursue cryonics--a chapter is devoted to this in my book. Mike Perry Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=14848