X-Message-Number: 25485 Date: Fri, 7 Jan 2005 06:17:47 -0800 Subject: Lengthy Response to All From: <> IDENTITY THEORY OF MIND AND QUALIA Qualia do not exist, and neither do I believe in their existence, as if such a thing could make sense. Therefore, I disagree with proponents of qualia who believe that qualia exist, or who believe that they are somehow separate from the processes of the brain. I equate qualia with the subjective sensations that happen to the brain. All identity theorists will agree that sensations happen, they will merely insist, as do I, that these sensations are merely changes of a specific type occuring to the brain. Therefore, while identity theorists may object to my use of the term 'qualia', they do not disagree with what I mean by the term. THE DUPLICATES PARADOX, REVISITED I have remarked that if I am frozen and destructively scanned, and this scan is used to create N duplicates, then my subjective inner life can continue in at most one duplicate. It doesn't make sense to say my subjective inner life continues in all duplicates, since the duplicates can be activated while they are facing different views the universe (for example, one facing the moon, and one facing the sun; another facing the Grand Canyon, and another facing Mount Everest, etc.). Since subjectively, upon reawakening 'I' can see at most one of these views of the universe, my subjectivity can continue in at most one of the duplicates. It seems people generally agree with me here (except Francois, who insists I would really 'see everything,' even though he says the duplicates do not share perceptions, which makes them useless from the perspective of personal survival, and reduces 'see everything' to a meaningless jumble of words). However, what I view as a reductio ad absurdum, other people view as merely a doctrine requiring great faith. Yes, it seems absurd, they say, but we must have faith! We cannot trust our reason, we must look the other way when we see these absurdities! To me, this smacks of blind religion. When your view leads you to a point of absurdity, this is not a sign that you need to have faith-- -it is a sign your view is wrong. Clearly, this is indeed a point of great absurdity. If my subjective inner life continues in one duplicate, and not others, then there must be some mechanism responsible for this behavior. Why this duplicate and not another? Why any duplicate at all? If my subjective inner life does not continue in one duplicate, it is possible it does not continue in any duplicate at all. Moreover, if the scan is not destructive, then presumably my subjective inner life would continue in the original, if reactivated after the freezing. But one can imagine a thought experiment where, in one scenario, the duplicates are activated at the same time as the original, whereas in another scenario, the duplicates are activated at the same time the original is destroyed. Assuming the duplicates and the original are separated by fast distances, then the patternists would have me believe that in the first scenario, I continue to exist in the original, whereas in the second, some 'mystical essence' travels the fast expanses of space, at faster than light speeds, and arrives at one arbitrarily- chosen duplicate, so that my subjective inner life can continue there, and not elsewhere. The very notion that my subjective inner life continues in one duplicate, and not all, implies there is some property (after continuance) that this duplicate has which the others do not. But since the patterns are the same, this implies a 'mystical essence,' which is capable of hopping from one pattern to another (instantaneously, no less), apparently based on nothing but the whims of the patternist. This view is the product of fuzzy, wishful thinking. NATURE OF EXISTENCE If I say this apple before me now existed yesterday, what do I mean? Clearly the physical particles comprising the apple existed yesterday, but they have existed for eons, and will exist for eons more. I do not mean merely the atoms in that region of space exist, since that is a meaningless statement. Of course the atoms that exist exist; it could not be otherwise. No, much more is implied by my statement that the apple before me now existed yesterday. What I mean this statement is that this hunk of matter had Apple Properties yesterday, and has had Apple Properties continuously from that point in time until today. Meaning, in turn, that even while the exact configuration of atoms and even the very atoms themselves change with time, the resulting hunk of matter still satisfies the Apple Properties. This is the nature of existence, when applied to nouns. This is why such a statement as, 'The brown Honda Civic you own crashed into my car,' can make any sense at all. Such a statement can be true because 'Honda Civic' does not refer to a physically existing thing (which must be a physical particle, or string, or whatever it turns out things are made of), but rather, it refers to a set of relations satisfied by physically existing things. The Honda Civic continues to exist for as long as those relations are satisfied. Some people are confused because they think an apple or a car is a physically existing thing. I would caution them not to confuse the names inside their head with what actually exists. The names in your head merely describe the variations in spacetime of what exists. If you can accept this, then you will see clearly the answer to the question of personal survival. Since when referring to 'personal survival', we are, most fundamentally, referring not to just our memories and personalities, but to our ability to experience sensations, preservation of this ability is essential to preservation of us. CRYONICS AND SURVIVAL Robert complains that the perfectly vitrified brain is not having any experiences, and that therefore, we do not survive according to my criteria of survival. This is erroneous. While I sleep or if I am put under using certain drugs, I have no experiences. None whatsoever. However, I survive both occurances. Why? Because even while my brain may not be changing in the specific ways that correlate with experience, it is, nonetheless, functionally capable of changing in those ways. The perfectly vitrified brain may require heat (and ATP and blood circulation, etc) in order to begin changing in ways correlating with experience, much as my brain, when sleeping, requires certain changes in order to return me to consciousness, but the 'self- circuit' as Robert calls it, remains intact---as evidenced by the fact that the brain requires no repair in any of these cases in order to begin experiencing again (even a damaged brain requires no repair to experience, if the damage is not sufficiently great; however, the experience may be greatly impaired and require repair in order to return it to its former state). Therefore, I regard it as a certainty that I would survive perfect vitrification, as I regard it as a certainty that I will survive tonight. I do not stop existing in either case; rather, my subjective inner life stops happening, by which I mean my brain stops changing in the specific ways numerically identical to experience. I do not regard it as a certainty of surviving present day freezing or vitrification. I think the odds are low in both cases, but dramatically lower for freezing. This is why I have signed with Alcor for vitrification, and hope CI perfects their vitrification protocol soon, to increase the odds of their patients surviving. COADJUTANT MINDS If each distributed system were capable of experiencing sensations by itself, then destruction of that system would mean loss of its ability to experience sensations. Therefore, the only way 'coadjutant minds' could be useful for survival is if each distributed system were only 'part of the whole'---i.e. incapable of experiencing qualia on its own. In such a design, loss of one node would be to the whole system as loss of a neuron is to me. However, I doubt such a design could ever be constructed. If you imagine each system being the functional analog of a neuron (since we know neurons can give rise to experience), with intercommunication done through radio waves and not physical connections, then you would need 1,000 trillion communication lanes. There is not enough EM bandwidth to accomodate one such distributed brain, let alone 4 billion. You could distribute a group of neurons, but again, if you reach such a size where each bundle has subjective sensations, then the survival of one bundle will not be relevant to the destruction of another. If we overlook all these problems, then we have to ask the question if experience is possible at all over a widely distributed network. The speed of light and bandwidth issues pose serious problems for a meaningful distributed brain. The distance betwee nodes has to be great if there is to be a survival advantage. So I regard a distributed brain as useless from my perspective. A much better survival strategy is exponentially increasing awareness of your environment. If you know about all asteroids in the solar system, all projectiles, the state of the sun, the state and activity of every other life form, plus the state of your health, then you are never in any real danger of dying; every potential disaster can be averted. Of course, if I survive for a long time, I would want some protections: an exoskeleton, a flash-freezer for my brain built into this exoskeleton, a home in a stable space-based construct, and robot guardians. In such an advance state of society, there would be nothing that I could do, which could not be done more efficiently by a special-purpose machine (those of you who have the idea that general purpose AI can compete with special purpose AI are mistaken). Therefore, all my time would be leisure, and I would spend it in virtual reality stories. MAGNETIC RESONANCE FREEZING I am sorry, I misspoke: of course, MRF operates on water molecules (not hydrogen), which have dipole moments. By imparting rotational energy to these tiny magnets, it is possible to prevent them from forming lattices during freezing, which in turn prevents the formation of ice crystals, and therefore substantially reduces damage. Best Regards, Richard B. R. Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=25485