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 Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=25077