X-Message-Number: 25251 Date: Wed, 8 Dec 2004 21:37:42 -0800 (PST) From: Scott Badger <> Subject: Re: Identity Perhaps my time-worm scenario example wasn t a good one. Apologies. But if you could go back in time and meet yourself, would it make sense to ask which one was you?. Let s try something else. How about the classic thought experiment where the natural brain s neurons are replaced, one at a time, by artificial neurons which are precise duplicates until the normal brain was completely replaced by an artificial brain? Where is the line at which the QE is destroyed and how do you justify the existence of that line? The closest thing to what Richard is describing that I ve seen is Michael Gazzaniga s Interpreter theory. Below is an excerpt that helps explain this user illusion perspective. I m sure most cryonicists are hoping to rescue their self (i.e. their identity) from death and extinction. But if Gazzaniga and others are right, it won t make a whole lot of sense to place so much value on the self since it has such a minor role in our mental affairs. If a way can be found in the future to expand our consciousness to the entire mind, it will most likely mean shedding the thin veneer of consciousness Gazzaniga calls the Interpreter since it appears to be primarily a watcher, not a doer in the brain. Here are the excerpts. For starters, the conscious mind, or consciousness, is truly a tiny part of our existence. Most of the brain s workings, perhaps 98 percent, are simply out of sight, unconscious. By unconscious I don t mean repressed or shoved down as Freud had it but simply beyond our ken and awareness, automatic, silent, omnipresent, the gift of millions of years of evolution. The conscious mind plays a smaller and more focused role than we think, and is often playing catch-up with the goings on down below. Gazzaniga opens one chapter with By the time we think we know something the brain has already done its work. The brain covers for this done deal aspect of brain-mind functioning by making it appear that what has already occurred is occurring now. Gazzaniga says that we have a section of the left brain called the interpreter or the spin doctor that tries to put our experience in a more coherent story or narrative format and to ask questions of its self. Like most story writers, the spin doctor embellishes and fills in the gaps with many fictional details both in our memories and in our rationalizations for present conduct. The spin doctor also is the seat of reasoning, or the ability to ask why questions when things go wrong. While the spin doctor or the interpreter operates outside of consciousness it seems to be the primary facilitator of the workings of consciousness. The interpreter is likely where our strange idea of having a self originates. Despite the contributions of consciousness, the undermind, or the Shadow as Gazzaniga terms it, is the senior partner in our mental affairs. Gazzaniga says of our unconscious brain, The Shadow Knows. Indeed, there is evidence that even our voluntary actions begin in the unconscious instead of consciousness. Gazzaniga says that the conscious mind trying to control the brain is something like a harried playground monitor, a hapless entity charged with the responsibility of keeping track of multitudinous brain impulses running in all directions at once. http://www.bisbeemarquee.com/www/2004/02-2/c01.php Cheers, Scott Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=25251