X-Message-Number: 4083
Date: Fri, 24 Mar 1995 22:01:28 -0800
From: John K Clark <>
Subject: SCI.CRYONICS Uploading

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Robert Ettinger  ()  Wrote:

	      > FEELING is NOT necessarily information processing at all, at
	      >least not in the sense of a Turing machine.
	      
All information can be processed on a Turing machine.
	      
	      >A particular feeling might conceivably--just as one vague
	      >possibility--be a STATE or CONDITION in the brain
	      
I'm quite sure that's true but I don't understand  why that's
inconsistent with information processing. Feeling is a  STATE or
CONDITION in the computer. If information processing is not
involved in feeling there is no reason the brain must be either,
the big toe could be the source of feelings and emotion, perhaps
people who lost their big toe are just mindless zombies. The
only reason the brain seems interesting is that the rest of the
body sends information there and it sends information back, but
if it turns out that information is not important...
	      
	      >They will simply DISREGARD and NOT ADDRESS the possibility
	      >that a simultaneous, real-time action of several parts          
	      >may be essential for feeling, and that this is not possible
	      >for a Turing machine
	      
Turing machines are perfectly capable of performing simultaneous action , 
I don't know what "real time" means in this context.
	   
	     >feeling may depend on CHEMISTRY, which may limit the possible
	     >substrates.
	     
It does depend on chemistry because chemistry can alter the information flow 
in the brain.

	    >When we know the physical/physiological basis of feeling in
	    >mammals we will then know at least sufficient conditions for    
	    >feeling. 
	    
How will we ever "know" this? You demand absolute certainty, you
also demand a more rigorous proof than even formal mathematics
insists on, yet we can not use behavior  to help us in finding
this theory , nor can we use behavior in testing this theory.
Feeling is inherently subjective, the only feelings we have
DIRECT experience of is our own. If we want to study the
feelings in other people we can only do it indirectly, through
behavior, there just isn't any other way. 
	     
	    >Since humans have evolved to function with feeling, removing
	    >the feeling (while leaving other parts/aspect of the brain      
	    >unchanged) will probably make it impossible for them to function 
	    >normally. 
	     
I agree. For the last 3 months I've been saying that feeling is
NOT some useless appendage but is absolutely essential if a mind
is to operate; any mind. I note you use the word "function",
that seems to indicate that behavior can be used to deduce feelings. 
	       
	    >the self circuit may (essentially) just exist or not, with no
	    >partial feeling  possible.
	    
No way that can be true, I agree with Steven Harris about that
in message # 4070 . Drugs can dull emotions as well as sharpen
them and so can moods. When you go to sleep it's a gradual
process with the self slowly fading away for a few hours, there
is not one instant you can point to and say this is the precise
moment I fell asleep.    
	  
	    >it seems somewhat unlikely that anyone would program a
	    >computer to threaten humanity.
	    
I don't expect them to threaten humanity or want to rule us,
they'll have bigger fish to fry. Do you have a burning desire to
become King of the earthworms? 
	    
	    >Anyway, at this stage, someone else would program equally
	    >competent computers zealously to guard human interests.
	    
I don't see how that would be possible. An AI, if it's truly
intelligent would be able to modify it's program just as humans
do, It would be so complex that nobody would really understand
how it worked except in very broad outline. Imagine an earthworm
trying to deceive you so it could trick you into behaving in a way it wants.
	     
	   >we may  learn how to integrate a brain with a computer, i.e.
	   >make a computer  anauxiliary or extension of the brain. In that 
	   >case, WE would be the  benevolent "computers" .
	    
Yes! You're starting to sound like an uploader.
	    


On a completely unrelated matter, I'd just like to say to Mr. Cosenza 
that your gratuitous personal attack on Mike Darwin was in 
very poor taste and it did not have the effect you desired. 
I would be astounded if anybody thought less of Mr. Darwin because
of your post, however I would not be at all surprised if they
thought less of you. Cryonics would not exist today if it wasn't
for men like Mike Darwin and Robert Ettinger, they deserve our
respect because they've earned it.
	  
					John K Clark     

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