X-Message-Number: 25077
Date: Wed, 17 Nov 2004 21:56:26 -0500
From: Francois <>
Subject: Qualia experiencer

It seems to me that the qualia experiencer hypothesis is the death knell of
any cryonics effort. However well a process to preserve a brain works,
however perfectly its structure is preserved, even if it is down to the
atomic level, a brain sitting in liquid nitrogen displays no activity at
all. It percieves no qualia, there is NO functionning qualia experiencer
within it. The person this brain belonged to is DEAD. Any process used to
restart brain functions, however perfectly it worked, would only start a new
qualia experiencer, different from the original one. A new person would come
to life, but the one who died would remain dead. However, if the resulting
qualia experiencer is the original one simply because its structure is still
made up of the same matter, then recreating that structure with different
atoms identically arranged would duplicate the qualia experiencer and give
rise to a second instance of the SAME person. A copy identical to the
original IS the original. A perfect copying process does not result in an
original and a copy, it results in two originals.

Finally, lets not forget that we live in a quantized universe. The Plank
length is the smallest distance that can exist in our universe, the "pixel
size" of spacetime if you will. Since space and time are united and
indistinguishable in general relativity, there must also be a "plank time",
a smallest possible time interval. Objects cannot smoothly go from one plank
interval to the next because there is no possible intermediate time
interval. They must disappear in one plank interval and reappear in the
next. That's a mind boggling concept don't you agree, the fact the whole
universe is completely destroyed and recreated trillions upon trillions upon
trillions of times every second, you and I included? How could the
uniqueness of a qualia experiencer ever be more than an illusion in such a
world?

Francois
The Devil fears those who learn more
than those who pray

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