X-Message-Number: 3873
Date: Sun, 19 Feb 1995 20:24:48 -0500
From: "Bruce Zimov" <>
Subject: SCI.CRYONICS: Uploading


I sent this once but it never got through for some reason. Here
it is again:

 
John Clark wrote:
 
>I said that the simplest part of the mind is something that
>changes in only one way or something that doesn't change at all.
 
You misunderstood me.  The unchanging view is the bankrupt view, its
the same as the religious view. But the choice you give is a false
one.  One view of the simplest part of the mind, if such a concept
is even meaningful, would be something that changes in only one way.
I said that your view of what the simplest part of the mind is DOES
NOT justify your demand that we must believe it or subscribe to the
bankrupt unchanging view (Your Step 6 in your believe it or else flow
diagram). There are other possibilities. Why can't the simplest part 
of the mind change in N ways?
 
Let's say that it were something that only changed in one
way. THAT is a switch, and I agree that we can use switches to
replace brain parts. BUT THAT is not a bit of information. A bit
of information is not the same as a switch.  A bit has a cardinal
value that is interpreted through an external key.  The labeling
0 and 1 is a good example.  In itself, its just a switch letting
things flow this way or that depending on what its hooked up to.
In fact, if its a non-linear switch, then its more like a control
valve that includes half-open states.  A water faucet may be a
better model for the simplest part of the mind in this regard than
something that only changes in one way. Neurons are non-linear.
 
>You'd have to put the information into a computer ( or Searle's
>Chinese Room) for it to become dynamic and my consciousness to return.
 
It wouldn't be your consciousness, it'd be the computer's consciousness.
We've been down this road already. 
 
I don't have your post anymore, but you said something about rejecting
Moravec's radical position and I thought it was about being stored in
a book on a shelf. Do you really think you could survive on the pages
of a book?
 
>infinite regress thus reasoning is unattainable
 
There's no infinite regress. Once again you misunderstand me. 
 
>          >The brain doesn't use bit patterns. It uses patterns of ion
>          >conductance around a material neural network.
 
>A computer doesn't use bit patterns, it uses patterns of
>electron concentration in a material semiconductor. Exactly what
>is it about ion conductance that allows it and only it to
>generate consciousness?
 
Nothing, other media can generate consciousness. As I said before,
a bit of information is not the same as a switch. 
 
Bruce Zimov




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