X-Message-Number: 21691 Date: Mon, 28 Apr 2003 10:33:54 -0400 From: Thomas Donaldson <> Subject: CryoNet #21681 - #21689 For Bob Ettinger: No, everything we do is NOT symbolic. The fact that we can use symbols to describe it does not mean that it is itself symbolic, other than in the trivial sense in which you simply identify events and symbols. I will go so far as to say that this is a fundamental but common error which ultimately comes from the fact that human beings use language to describe the world. (Yes, we describe the world with a symbolic language, but the world itself is not symbolic). What is a symbol? Some event or thing which represents something other than itself. You are not a symbol for Bob Ettinger, though your name is. Our DNA is not symbolic, it is a chemical with features which allow self-reproduction in the proper milieu. And following on this, for Mike Perry: Much of what I've said to Bob applies to what you say. The world may or may not turn out to be discrete (though recent attempts to imagine units of distance as discrete, as a way of reconciling relativity and quantum mechanics, raise some fundamental problems). That discreteness in no way means that it is symbolic. Yes, if you wish you can consider anything to be symbolic of virtually anything else, but it is YOU who brings in the symbols, not the world itself. To say that events are "fundamentally computational in nature" raises similar issues. When we (or any other intelligent symbol- using creature) compute the passage of an event, our computation remains a symbolic act. If the Alcor facility burns down, it is not carrying out a computation, it is burning down. It is not the nature of events which makes them computational, it is our ability to use mathematics to compute a sequence of events which TELLS OF what happens. (If you mean by your statement that discreteness makes it possible for us to compute events, and that is what you mean by saying that events are "computational", I wouldn't argue with you --- though you omit the computer). No doubt this fails to convince both of you. Well, too bad. I always reply to my email late in the evening, and its time for me to go to bed once more. Best wishes and long long life for all, Thomas Donaldson Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=21691