X-Message-Number: 417 From att!compuserve.com!73647.1215 Fri Aug 30 02:52:13 EDT 1991 Date: 30 Aug 91 02:47:33 EDT From: Thomas Donaldson <> To: <whscad1!> Subject: Re: cryonics #408 - Re: Nano-neurons? Dear Miron: Yes and No. Certainly, if our physics were far more advanced in prediction we would theoretically derive the whole of chemistry from physics and the whole of biochemistry from chemistry and the whole of biology from biochemistry. HOWEVER we see around us that such has not been done, nor shows even the vaguest hint of being done. Even in terms of "simple" mechanics, we have chaos theory, which IN THEORY involves completely deterministic orbits --- but since even arbitrarily small changes to initial conditions leads to dramatic macroscopic differences, our derivation of the high level structure of the Solar System from low level physical principles will (in practice) fail. I doubt that there is any PRACTICAL EXPERIMENTAL sense in which the high level issues to life, or uploading, or any other such thing will ever be decidable solely from lower level parameters. Or perhaps did I misunderstand your meaning somehow? Thomas From att!compuserve.com!73647.1215 Fri Aug 30 03:01:54 EDT 1991 Date: 30 Aug 91 02:56:15 EDT From: Thomas Donaldson <> To: <whscad1!> Subject: Re: cryonics #409 - Re: Nano-neurons? Dear Alan: I'm not sure we are simply symbolic. A good deal of processing happens without our being conscious of it; when you speak of experience you're speaking of a thin layer of oil atop a deep ocean. (No, I'm not discussing Freud. I'm just pointing out that our conscious brain processing is only a small subset of that which goes on). Of course these processes might be _simulated_, once they are sufficiently understood. But if we want to improve ourselves by becoming simulated versions, then simulation alone won't help. Best Thomas Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=417