X-Message-Number: 3785 Date: Thu, 2 Feb 1995 22:05:01 -0800 From: John K Clark <> Subject: Uploading -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- I believe Mr. Ettinger's post is several days old but I've only just seen it. Wrote: >Now, you can't realize a bulldozer blade in tissue paper It's difficult to construct physical objects out of tissue paper because it's a poor building block, atoms work a lot better. Realizing non physical things is easier, printing a novel or mathematical proof Is straightforward even on tissue paper ,but it's possible (if impracticable) for more complex non material things to be realized, like Albert Einstein. Practicalities aside, a brain can be made out of anything and a computer doesn't have to be made of integrated circuits or even vacuum tubes. Babbage made one with gears and levers, IBM used hydraulics , Daniel Hillis built a working computer out of nothing but Tinker Toys. It's funny you mentioned tissue paper because Weizenbaum showed how to make a computer using a roll of toilet paper and a pile of small stones. Just make sure the computer is big enough, run the correct program and "it's a honor to meet you Professor Einstein ". The same computer could simulate an entire virtual world for us. Even if the computer that was simulating us was very slow, from our point of view it would seem infinitely fast. If the machine had performance problems all we'd have to do is slow down or even stop the part of the program that was simulating us while leaving the part that simulated the rest of the universe running. Regardless of how many calculations it would take to convince us that the simulation was real it could be done instantly, from our point of view. Once the machine was caught up it could carefully restart our part of the program till the next speed bottleneck. > to say that the brain is essentially "nothing but" a >computer or "nothing but" an information processor is simply >a false premise, or at the very least an unjustified premise. For any phenomenon it's always possible to claim that there might be some aspect of it not yet found that will need new physics to explain. It's not good practice to do this. >Is an analog (an isomorph) as good as the original? >Depends on what you want it to be good for--and how >far the isomorphism extends. It also depends on the nature of the original, if it's not an object then the copy is not as good as the original ,it is the original. >If an important part of you will not work without >some tiny [iron] magnets in exactly the right configurations, >then to some extent those magnets ARE you and >you ARE those magnets. If those particular iron atoms are you then there must be something different about them than the iron atoms in an old rusty car yet science can't detect the slightest difference. The right configuration of atoms is producing you , they are not you. Early computers would not work without vacuum tubes but today we have substitutions that work better and we can run those old programs on new machines. In the event that only an iron atom will do then use one. I don't have to denote all the complex behavior an iron atom is capable of because all iron atoms are the same and everything larger that atoms is made up of 92 IDENTICAL building blocks, the elements, only about 10 are used in life. >It [The Self Circuit] may be CRITICAL for >it to have very specific dimensions, frequencies, >response times interface capabilities--who knows what. I have a real problem with your self circuit idea. The brain produces a feeling of self but there's no reason to think one specific part does that and nothing more, evolution could never have produced such a thing. My television can produce images of David Letterman but that doesn't mean there is a David Letterman circuit in the set. It's much more likely that the self is a emergent phenomena produced by the entire brain.I don't think it's a useless appendage that's just tacked on. John K Clark -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.i iQCzAgUBLzHCjn03wfSpid95AQE01QTtESNIcMzODFGAPVcQreLBUomqUMjgqTQ0 LOI741sTw6BoMhZVBuCRVnuIGh6lCuw+AxW7GJD3lt3XLg0QNvMrtTysjyy801/u 8fMqwbsQPFgJpSVG6r3KY9DZA/Y72a6ArvBBzh7xMt3UvT+5DoBCFtTfFXBz2+kA LWWzlrL9zFxSTkaQwhnqY/cWQco8lQ+zYgUoBZAjQS4E4qhyRcc= =IsXW -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=3785