X-Message-Number: 409
From att!fernwood.mpk.ca.us!alc!alc.com!lovejoy Mon Aug 26 13:25:14 PDT 1991
Date: Mon, 26 Aug 91 13:25:14 PDT
From: 
To: whscad1.att.com!
Subject: Re:  cryonics #406 - Re: Nano-neurons?

To see whether or not "uploading" is possible in principle, it would be
helpful to determine whether or not the "soul" (or "mind," or
"personality") is an effect of symbolic computation and information
processing.  If the answer is yes, then uploading is in principle
possible.  Otherwise, the situation is simply unclear.

Symbolic information can be distinguished from non-symbolic information
by a very simple test.  If the message (information transmittal) has
the possibility of falsehood, then the information is represented
symbolically.  In contrast, if the information is guaranteed true by
physical law, then the information is not represented symbolically.
The only complication is that the distinction is a continuum, and not a
strictly-segregated, completely disjoint set of concepts.  The greater
the symbolic nature of an information carrier, the greater the level of
abstractability of the information into alternate physical forms.

When information is converted from a less-symbolic carrier to a
more-symbolic carrier, information is usually lost.  A well-known
example of this occurs when an analog music signal is digitized. The
reason for this is simply that symbolic encoding is a process of
abstracting out those aspects of an event or process that the message
sender wishes to ignore.  Ignoring unimportant information is not just
a convenience.  Failure to do so would require communicating ALL
information about an event or process, which would take forever.
Firstly, every event/process is composed of an infinite set of
subcomponent events/processes, and is itself but a subcomponent of an
infinite network of parent and sibling events/processes.  In other
words, everything is ultimately related to everything else.  Secondly,
to fully descibe most aspects of even a single atom would require real
numbers with infinite precision.  One would spend forever transmitting
the first number.

Let us now consider the level of symbolism exhibited by the human
mind.  Humans experience an approximation of reality.  In fact, their
minds create a model or simulation of reality as an interpretation of
the information they receive from human sensory organs.  Human minds
only imperfectly remember what they have experienced and/or been told.
They frequently "remember" things that simply did not happen.  Human
minds are not only capable of imagining hypothetical future events,
they spend much time fantasizing about desired, expected and/or feared
events that never happened and never will happen.  Humans even
intentionally relive past events, but purposely edit them so that they
differ from what actually happened (sometimes so as to construct a
plausible lie, sometimes just to enjoy imagining what it would have
felt like if "things had been different.")

The evidence is overwhelming that every aspect of human consciousness
is highly symbolic.  Human minds do not experience reality directly,
rather they live in a symbolic simulation of the world that need not
even correlate strongly with reality.  Human consciousness is obviously
an effect of symbolic computation and information processing.  There
can be no question that uploading is possible in principle.  There is,
however, some question as to whether it will ever be practical.

-- alan ()

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