X-Message-Number: 3787
Date: Fri, 3 Feb 1995 10:59:41 -0500
From: "Bruce Zimov" <>
Subject: SCI.CRYONICS: Uploading

 
What society thinks identity is or what observers think about a
person's identity under any situation is not the identity that
matters in survival.  These various criteria are extrinsic.
The only criterion that matters is the inner point
of view.
 
Currently, our brains serve as a causal conduit between our
wake states.  We survive normally that way in the way that matters.
Our interest is in our future wake states. Our memory is of our
past wake states.  Though convenient and valuable to us, our
memories are incidental, and if transferable are also losable in
the sense that another host that is NOT a future wake state of
ourselves could have that memory.  All of this points to our
memory as secondary and our subjective circuit as primary for
what matters in survival.
 
The subjective circuit is thought to be cortical or cortico-reticular.
EEG studies on dogs after undercutting the cortex supports the cortical
only view.  Our wake state correlates with cortical frequencies in
the 30Hz range.  We feel what it is like to be a particular network
state (wake state).  This particular network state will probably
end up being an attractor on the cortex of some sort, caually
supported in a regular manner by the brainstem. 
 
If the subjective circuit is copied, would we lose the causal
continuity, as we would with memory copying?  Any copying
since it creates a branch and leaves the original intact
will from an extrinsic point of view satisfy HISTORICAL
causal continuity. But, this is true in parenting a child
as well, and we do not survive from the inner point of view in
our children. So, the type of causal relation required for
continuity of the inner point of view does NOT transfer, 
even if we can copy subjectivity AND memories. The reason
is that OUR normal causal conduit is not being used, yet
it still exists, if even as a frozen brain.
 



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