X-Message-Number: 25123
From: 
Date: Sun, 21 Nov 2004 10:45:14 EST
Subject: language etc

Valera wrote in part:

> The experiencer and the experienced may be interconnected, or 

>interdependent, but they are NOT the same. .......If they >were the same I 
>couldn't 

possibly control my feelings, for instance. .......... Feelings cannot >control
themselves.

I believe this is a confusion of language. Yes, "feelings" can control 

themselves, in the only relevant sense, through chains of causality. In any 
case, I 
see no alternative,  because if you don't accept the identity of experience 
and experiencer, you are saddled with the homunculus, which is meaningless. 

Our habitual use of language disposes us to distinguish between the atoms, 

the arrangement of the atoms, and the activity of the arrangements. Patternists
(infolifers or uploaders) believe that only the activity of the arrangements 
is important--a kind of second-ordxer pattern. Again, this is merely an 

assertion or assumption, not a logical conclusion from agreed premises, and with
really nothing going for it except a vague plausibility, plus maybe some 
psychological comfort.

Anyone who thinks these questions are near resolution need only browse the 
web a little, looking at the professional literature, the best of the 

neuroscientists, philosophers, and physicists. The best of them have no dogmas, 
but 

acknowledge that we have a long way to go before understanding. They also agree
that thought experiments have limited value. 

Meanwhile, according to its web site, Alcor is raising its prices to $80,000 
neuro and $150,000 whole body for new members, and raising dues to $518 yearly 
for adults in the US and Canada.

Robert Ettinger 


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